


Echo

by cywscross



Series: Steter Collection [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassin Peter Hale, Assassin Stiles Stilinski, Blood and Gore, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death, Season/Series 04, Steter Week, Steter Week 2017
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-02-06 09:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12814791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/cywscross
Summary: A match made in Hell, some would say.They're both unsurprisingly okay with that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is in his bedroom doing homework when his email pings to tell him his private dropbox two towns over has a new delivery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much prepared for Steter Week this year unfortunately but I _do_ have a Season 1 Rewrite I've been working on. It's not finished yet though so I'll probably be posting that towards the end of the week instead. In the meantime, enjoy a second chapter of this. Assassin husbands!Steter is apparently something I enjoy writing.

 

 _Well,_ he thinks later once he has the cassette playing and the three keywords entered to get to the deadpool list. _With all the noise they make, it was only a matter of time before someone put out hits on them._

He lingers on some of the names he knows - 20 million dollars for Lydia, 25 million for Scott, 15 million for Derek.

What special snowflakes.

Stiles wonders if he should be offended that he’s not on here.  But then, it looks like it’s a list of supernatural creatures, and whatever else Stiles is, supernatural isn’t one of them.  Besides, none of them trumps his current bounty.

He scans the list again, pausing this time on KATE ARGENT 12,000,000.

Well, well, well.  Look what the dead dragged back.

Stiles smirks and leans back in his chair.  He’s going to have to put a stop to this ridiculousness.  And whoever posted this list in the first place is just asking for a bullet to the head.  But he supposes, before he gets on that, it wouldn’t hurt to cash in on a few of these hits.

Most of the McCall Pack have survived by the skin of their teeth so far.  They can hang on for a bit longer, and maybe assassins trying to kill them will teach them some subtlety at last.

He thinks about that for a moment.

Then again, it’s probably not something he should get his hopes up about.

 

* * *

 

Stiles doesn’t bother with the hits sitting in the thousands.  Those are beneath him; he works for millions now.

He skips over his friends too, of course.  No matter how much their bumbling ineptitude when it comes to taking care of a problem, _permanently_ , exasperates him, they’re still under his protection.

He thinks, briefly, of going after Noshiko Yukimura, who has a bounty of 5 million, but then he dismisses that too.  She’s Kira’s mother, and that gives her a pass, if barely.  Stiles will never forgive her for her role in keeping silent and indirectly causing the nogitsune’s rampage, but he likes Kira enough not to take her mother away from her.

Besides, if there’s one thing he might actually thank the nogitsune for, it’s that the fox’s little jaunt in his body reminded him of his more… sociopathic tendencies.  Not that Stiles needed help with _that_ before, but… for a while, running around after Scott and running around after Derek and trying to save the town time and time again like amateur vigilantes fumbling in the dark, Stiles thinks he forgot them for a while.  Or left them on the wayside, more likely, and he didn’t even realize how much it chafed at him, made him jittery and restless, how much he missed the freedom of a perfect shot, the power of the execution, and the silence of death that follows.

The nogitsune jolted something loose in him, and these days, he’s a little more detached from the pack and their headless chicken imitations.  It helps that they don’t seem to want him around all that much after the possession and Allison, although if he’s honest, even before the nogitsune’s killing spree, Stiles’ status as a mere _human_ already saw Scott keeping him out of the loop more than once.  Stiles could’ve _removed_ Gerard for him from the start if he realized Scott didn’t have a problem at all with killing the bastard.  Then again, he did insist on keeping Gerard alive after he failed to kill him using Derek, so it was probably for the best that Stiles kept his hands clean of the whole matter.  Right up until nobody was looking and Stiles tracked the geriatric down at a nursing home and ended him there of course.  That was a good day.

The other werewolves too treated him like he was always lesser, shoving him around like it was their right.  If they knew what he was, they wouldn’t have dared.  But Stiles doesn’t kill innocents, and he had no desire to blow his cover - still doesn’t - so he let them condescend him and smack him around and threaten him to their hearts’ content.

Nowadays, he still lends a hand, but he’s also taken a step back from it all, no longer pushing himself to rush research for them or hatch their next plans for them.  It’s a far less stressful existence overall, and Stiles almost wants to kick himself for not doing it sooner.

He supposes the biggest difference is that he’s no longer trying to win their approval.  He was so excited when Scott was bitten and Derek showed up.  He knew about werewolves but he didn’t personally _know_ any, and when he finally did, he thought maybe he’d found people to fit in with at last.  People with more animal instincts and looser morals, if only because of the very _nature_ of werewolves.  Packs governed themselves because they lacked a true body of law enforcement aside from hunters, and those were more often corrupt than not.  It sounded a lot like how Stiles governs _himself_ on his job, researching his targets and picking out the ones who deserve to die and killing them before they became a further problem to him or to other people.  So surely, in such a blood for blood world, _werewolves_ would understand Stiles’ methods and rules.

But no, that turned out to be a huge disappointment.  If anything, Scott was even worse.  Stiles has always known his best friend was something of a white knight with a checkerboard’s outlook on life, and when he was human, Stiles tolerated it with an indulgent kind of amusement, but that sort of thinking isn’t fit for the world they now live in, and if possible, Scott became even worse after turning into a werewolf, constantly rejecting what he was, constantly condemning people that didn’t align with his view of how everything should be, constantly refusing to keep a more open mind and compromise.

And Derek is just a brooding, glowering, unhappy husk of a wolf, stunted by guilt and prone to violence.  The newly bitten kids all took after either Derek or Scott as their role models, and the only one who ever actually came close to Stiles’ idea of a werewolf was Peter.  Whom everyone condemned.

So he kept his other half, other life under wraps, knowing none of them would ever understand.  Well, Peter might, but there’s no telling what Peter Hale would do with the information, and the man himself is… he’s smart and clever and matches Stiles’ own sense of humour well enough that Stiles doesn’t want to have to kill him if he tries to use Stiles in his own little power-plays.

So he says nothing, and now here they all are, a few years down the road and still neck-deep in danger.  Stiles is mostly just amused.  He’s been taking more jobs again so he hasn’t been around as much, doesn’t _want_ to be around as much either, but the deadpool at least is a break from the monotony.

He’s surprised to find Parrish on the list, and he’s not sure what the hell the deputy is to also be worth $5 million, but the guy seems nice enough, a background check doesn’t turn up anything suspicious, and Stiles’ dad likes him.  So he gets to live too, although Stiles is definitely going to keep an eye on him in case he turns out as psychotic as the rest of the crazies who like to turn Beacon Hills into their hunting grounds.

He settles on Patrick Clark.  It takes a bit of debatably legal digging but Stiles soon finds out he’s an escaped inmate of Eichen House, a wendigo apparently, and with a kill count of several dozen before he was locked up.

He’s also only worth a measly million which makes Stiles sigh, but he’s either not allowed to go after half the list or they’re worth even less.  Or - in Kate’s case - he doesn’t quite know where she is just yet.

So the wendigo it is.

 

* * *

 

It takes about five days for Stiles to track him down.  To be fair, he’s busy fielding Scott’s freak-out about biting some kid while fending off a wendigo - not the one Stiles is planning to kill - who was eventually murdered at the hospital less than a day after his family was also killed.  Stiles gets his hands on the autopsy and smiles when he recognizes the Mute’s handiwork.

Oh excellent.  He was hoping the Mute might show up.  50 million dollars, and it just strode right into Stiles’ town.

Now _that’s_ more like it.

Then of course, there’s Peter’s outraged meltdown about his stolen money, which is boring but still a little funny right up until the werewolf snarls, “It was 117 million dollars in bearer bonds!”

Lydia smirks as she leaves to meet up with the others, and Stiles turns to follow her, but he eyes the open safe speculatively.  “117, huh?”

Peter sneers at him, probably thinking Stiles is mocking him.  Stiles shrugs and heads out after Lydia.

117 million.  The exact total of the deadpool.

 

* * *

 

He catches up to Patrick Clark a few days later.  A single shot to the head from the roof opposite the butcher shop that the wendigo is holed up in, and the job is done.  He packs up, cleans up, and dumps the body in a public parking lot.

Three hours later, it’s all over the news, and Stiles gets a million dollars wired to one of his accounts.

 

* * *

 

The pack gathers at the loft for a meeting, mostly to talk - again - about the deaths and Kate and what to do about both.  Peter is there too, sitting off to the side as usual, tight-lipped and tense, expression cold.  He doesn’t bring up his money or the incident in the loft just yesterday when he was attacked by the Mute, probably knowing full well the others will just mock him for it again.  He doesn’t do anything as obvious as rub at his chest, but on occasion, his shoulders roll a little, the muscles in his chest flexing, and a shadow of a grimace would cross his face.  From what Stiles heard, the Mute got him straight in the chest with a wolfsbane-coated tomahawk and Peter still kicked his ass, at least enough to make him retreat, and even managed to get the assassin’s communicator off of him.  Stiles can admit that’s pretty impressive.  Less impressive is Derek - still smirking like the mere memory made his whole month when he recounted how he had to burn the wolfsbane out of his uncle with a blowtorch.

There are days when Stiles wonders what exactly it was about Kate - creepy all around and screaming SEXUAL PREDATOR, STAY AWAY, KIDS even as a human - that attracted a sixteen-year-old Derek with a werewolf’s sense of smell.

But then there are days like this when Stiles doesn’t have to wonder very much at all.

Peter’s shoulders roll again, a flicker of discomfort darting across his features before they smooth out again.  Other than that, he’s not doing anything else but he’s still the most interesting thing in the room, considering everyone else is just going through the same song and dance over their current crisis and not actually coming up with a viable plan to _do_ anything about it.

Well, Scott texted Chris Argent about it, so that’s something.  Actually, he just told the guy about his not-so-dead sister.  Over text.

Sometimes, Stiles finds Scott’s hypocrisy equal parts hilarious and grating.  The True Alpha always looks so terribly disapproving whenever Stiles says or does something insensitive, and then Scott goes and does the exact same thing and finds nothing wrong with it.  And tactlessly breaking bad news is the least of his double standards.

When the pack starts rehashing everything all over again, Stiles tunes them out in favour of pulling out his phone and watching the blip of the tracker he planted in the Mute’s car blinking away near the south end of town.

Then his mind wanders to the kids he saw at school today, Violet and Garrett.  They’re older than Stiles, but only by a few years, and they’re still baby-faced enough to pass as freshmen.

The Orphans.  $3 million apiece.  Not too bad.  Stiles smiles a bit.  He wouldn’t mind taking their bounties too, and it’s been awhile since he’s had time for a bit of a challenge.  Disaster after disaster striking Beacon Hills has cut into his work time, and it’s been… an uncomfortable itch under his skin.

He glances at Peter again, blinking slowly when he finds the werewolf staring back at him, head cocked curiously to one side, his features blank but his eyes sharp.

Stiles raises his eyebrows before turning his attention back to the pack.

Peter doesn’t stop staring until they all get up to leave.

 

* * *

 

Stiles kills the Mute that very same evening, a sniper shot from an empty building at an angle that he’s certain even his babcia would’ve been proud of.

He disassembles his rifle, shoulders it, then jogs across the street and into the Mute’s little hideout to snap a few pictures before calling in an anonymous tip.

He already stopped by the Dollar Tree earlier and picked up a small box and some bright wrapping paper.

He drops off the whole thing at the post office before driving home.

 

* * *

 

50 million dollars look good even on a computer screen.  He adds 6 million to it a couple days later after taking out the Orphans and buys himself several new video games to celebrate.

 

* * *

 

In-between it all, the Sheriff comes home and stands at Stiles’ bedroom doorway for a long moment, just staring at his son.  Stiles makes an enquiring noise around the straw in his milkshake, and his dad heaves a sigh before jabbing a finger at him.

“Keep it to the bad guys.  And I want a Meat Lovers for dinner.”

Stiles salutes sloppily.  His dad rolls his eyes and goes to call for delivery.

 

* * *

 

The Chemist is next.  He’s creepier than the Mute, in Stiles’ opinion, which is saying a lot because the Mute lacked an entire _mouth_.  But the Chemist reminds Stiles far too much of the doctors in Eichen House, cold hands and colder eyes, devoted to his science the way only true fanatics can be, and Stiles doesn’t want the guy wandering around Beacon Hills any longer than absolutely necessary.

Dear old Simon gets three days to see the sights, which is three days too many because he manages to worm his way into the school and even attacks Coach while he’s there.

Finstock recovers, but Stiles still makes the Chemist’s death very messy and very painful.  You’d be surprised how much damage can be done with a sniper rifle if you have perfect aim.

 

* * *

 

He snaps more pictures and sends them off to collect on the bounty.  There isn’t much of the head left in the aftermath but the body is still identifiable to both police forensics and those who actually recognized the assassin on sight, and the whole incident made headlines for a week.

120 million dollars was how much the Chemist was worth, and that’s how much Stiles earns.  He also gets a significant increase in his own bounty, and that of course is worth even more than the kill.

 

* * *

 

“It’s Echo,” Braeden announces one afternoon while they’re pouring over crime scene photos of each of the recent string of deaths that Lydia managed to charm out of Parrish.  “No doubt about it.”

“Echo?”  Scott looks grateful for any excuse to stop looking at the glossy pictures of various corpses laid out on the table.  He pulls a confused face.  “Like another assassin?”

Braeden nods briskly, picking up one of the pictures of the Mute’s head.  Scott goes back to looking a bit queasy, especially when the mercenary turns it over to face them, one fingernail tapping at the bullet wound.

“Single shot to the head is their MO,” Braeden tells them.  “Usually with a sniper rifle.  Always clean, always counts.”

“But what about this one?”  Kira chimes in, grimacing at the scatter of photos depicting the Chemist’s remains.  “Is it not them or…?”

Braeden tosses the one of the Mute back on the table and peers at the ones Kira is pointing to instead.  “Still them.  Those are bullet wounds from the same rifle.”  She shrugs.  “Looks personal.  Probably pissed Echo off somehow.  They’ve been known to hold a grudge on occasion.  That’s when the messier kills appear.”

“But… why are they killing assassins?”  Scott asks.  “Are they… helping us?”  His face tells everyone exactly what he thinks of that kind of help.

Braeden scoffs, leaning back in her seat.  “No, probably not, unless any of you are acquainted with them?  But they’re probably just in it for the money.”

“Money?”

“You think world-class killers aren’t worth their own weight in gold?”  Braeden arches an eyebrow before glancing at the pictures again.  “The Mute - 50 million dollars.”  Scott’s mouth dropped open.  “The Orphans - 6 million together.  And the Chemist - 120 million dollars.  If you send proof that you killed them, and no doubt Echo did, you get paid.  It was probably child’s play for them too.  An assassin of Echo’s calibre?  You can bet they were given the deadpool like the others.  But that’s small fry to them.  Echo’s smart.  Has to be, with their reputation.  The moment they heard someone opened season on Beacon Hills?  They’re not gonna be thinking of a bunch of kids and civvies worth-” She nods at Scott.  “-25 mil at most.  They’re gonna be thinking of all the bigger fish conveniently gathering in one place for them like they’re just begging to be shot.”

A stunned silence follows.

“...So… they won’t come after us then?”  Kira asks hesitantly.  “Are they just going to leave once they’re done, um, done taking out the other assassins?”

Braeden shrugs again.  “Yeah, probably.  No reason to stay, right?”

“Well we can’t let them!”  Scott bursts out.  “What they’re doing is wrong!”

Breaden gives him some serious side-eye before glancing at Derek, who shrugs and actually looks a little bit embarrassed on Scott’s behalf.  Braeden rolls her eyes before aiming a flat look at the True Alpha.

“Look, kid, I’m sure you mean well, and that’s… nice, but how exactly are you planning to stop them?  You couldn’t even stop the Mute or the Chemist or even the Orphans.  The only reason you stopped Haigh - and he’s not even a professional - is because that deputy of yours happened to be fireproof.  And that wasn’t actually you, so technically, _you_ didn’t really stop him either.  And this is _Echo_.”

“Why Echo?”  Lydia cuts in abruptly before Scott can do more than open his mouth.  “The Mute is… self-explanatory.  The Chemist because he uses weaponized diseases.  The Orphans is almost cute and I suppose about the level of a couple teenagers who like to kill.  What is Echo from?  Echo as in Echo and Narcissus?”

Braeden gives her a strange look.  “No, sweetie.  Echo as in that’s the only thing left after one of their kills.  Their face has never been recorded.  They’ve never been arrested, never even been spotted and chased.  Nobody even knows if they’re a man or a woman.  Rumour has it though that it’s a title passed down because no one in living memory can actually remember a time when Echo wasn’t around.  But one thing that’s always the same is that the only evidence people have that Echo’s been by and gone is the echo of a gunshot and the resulting corpse.”

“Well, we’ll be the ones to stop them then!”  Scott jumps in again, and this time, even Derek sighs at him.

Braeden shakes his head and gets to her feet, packing up as she goes.  “You can try.  But I don’t know why you would.  As far as I can see, Echo’s done you a favour.  No more assassins knocking on your door, and the only one on the deadpool that they did go after was a wendigo who was locked up because he ate people.”  She pauses, and then gestures at herself.  “I’m a 35 million-dollar bounty, Scott.”  Scott gawks again.  Braeden nods.  “And I’m not worried.  Echo has a reputation.  They kill, but only those who deserve it.  And trust me, the ones they’ve killed in this town?  They definitely deserved it.”

“That’s not for them to decide!”

Breaden levels a cool look on him.  “But it is for _you_ to decide?”

Scott splutters.  “ _I’m_ not going to _kill_ anyone!”

Breaden snorts and doesn’t bother arguing.  “Derek, give me a ride back to my hotel.”

From across the room, Stiles watches them leave.  He can’t help feeling a little flattered by Braeden’s description of him.  It’s rare for him to hear someone’s honest opinion of him.  And she’s right - she does good work, so there’s no reason for him to lay a finger on her.  Or a bullet.

He watches Scott turn to Kira and Lydia and even Malia, earnest and righteous as he begins musing out loud about how they’re going to capture Echo.

Kira and even Lydia respond, if a bit half-heartedly, which frankly is still disappointing, especially in the latter’s case.  Lydia’s less… less like him than Stiles originally thought, and it kills a lot of the attraction he used to feel for her back when he watched her from afar and admired her for the vicious way she destroyed anyone who so much as looked at Danny or Jackson wrong.  These days, she’s… just _less_.  Diminished, and Stiles isn’t sure if she was always like this and he was mistaken in his assessment of her, or if proximity to Scott reduced her to this.

Malia on the other hand slants a look at Stiles, and when Stiles just stays sitting on the couch, the werecoyote shrugs and turns back to Scott, as disinterested as Stiles is in the entire proceedings.

She doesn’t know, he thinks, what he does for a living, doesn’t know he’s Echo.  But he knows she can smell _something_ on him that aligns more with her inner animal than the human part of her, and maybe that’s why she always looks to him first.

Not for the first time, he wonders what it would be like if he wasn’t just teaching Malia how to read and write and dress and be a normal girl.  He wonders what it would be like if he taught her his trade too, put a gun in her hand and showed her how to shoulder it, how to breathe, how to pull the trigger.

Wonders if she would prefer that or a knife or something even more hands-on.

Wonders how good she would be at it.

But that’s not something he should push her into, and she’s susceptible enough to his suggestions as it is.  For once, she should have the chance to be normal.

Of course, thoughts of what Malia could be leads to thoughts of what Peter could be.  What he already is.  What he could become with some polishing.  Some structure.

Stiles’ gaze slides over to the man in question, and he’s less surprised than he should be when he finds the werewolf once again already staring back, blue eyes just shy of sparking with otherworldly light.

Stiles is… pretty sure Peter doesn’t know either.  But he can’t help _wondering_.  Can’t help thinking about it.  What would it be like to have Peter working with him?  Strong hands palming a gun or a knife, not a single movement wasted, and sharp enough to keep up, with a frame of mind that would see him flourish.

“Stiles?”  Scott calls out, and Stiles tears his eyes away from the burning glow of Peter’s.  “What do you think?  We still have to track down the Benefactor. If we show ourselves a bit, maybe we can lure Echo in.”

Stiles considers that for a moment, and then he says with deliberate carelessness, “Why?  Just let them go, dude.  This Echo person seems like they have the right idea here.”, just to see the disappointment bloom on Scott’s face.

Their resident True Alpha really does have that expression raised to an art form.

Scott huffs and turns back to the girls.  Malia flashes Stiles a smirk, and Stiles rolls his eyes back somewhat fondly.  He goes back to scrolling through the news on his laptop, reports of dead bodies that look like they were mauled by a very large cat.

Stiles has to suppress a smile.  The Benefactor first.  It’s time to bring an end to this macabre little game.

And then Kate.  It’s high time someone brings an end to her too.

 

* * *

 

Tracking the cassette back to Ludwig Brunski is easy.  The dropbox is watched at all times, and one would need to be a better hacker than some prison orderly to cut Stiles’ feeds.  Stiles doesn’t think he’s the Benefactor though.  He doesn’t have the intelligence or patience to pull off something like this, and he’s sadistic enough to enjoy doing the dirty work himself, not get other people to do it for him.  But that leaves the question of who _is_.

Lydia and the others are well on their way to terminating the rest of the deadpool contracts after Stiles gives them a few hints so it’s easy for him to slip away for a little face-to-face with Brunski.

Stiles is happy to gut him.  This time, he doesn’t use a rifle.  He carves the man up in an abandoned warehouse and listens to him scream, listens to him beg, and he doesn’t put him out of his misery until he gives Stiles a name.

Meredith.

 

* * *

 

He… probably shouldn’t.  In a way, Meredith is a victim too.  But he listens in on the conversation at the Station and hears the way Meredith twists words and cowers and lays the blame for _her_ actions, _her_ decisions, all on Peter, and hears too how everyone is all too willing to go along with it.

Lying on the roof opposite the Station, he thinks it’s a good thing he doesn’t have his rifle with him.

 

* * *

 

He’s sitting in his room when the Sheriff gets back.  Neither of them says anything right away.  His dad knows him well enough by now to pretty much just assume Stiles hears about everything that happens around this town, and he winces a little when Stiles just looks at him.

Theirs is a special brand of justice, his, and Mom’s, and Babcia’s, and all the Echoes who came before - ruthless, cruel even, and very bloody, but always, always _fair_ \- and his father knew that when he married in.

Sometimes though, Stiles thinks he still needs a reminder.

The Sheriff raises his hands in resignation.  “Just don’t get caught.”

Stiles smiles.  “I never do.”

 

* * *

 

He makes it public.  He makes it an execution.  Most of all, he plants the bullet in Meredith’s head after sending a text to Peter’s phone, rerouted so that it looks like it’s from Lydia’s, and gets him to the Station  just as Meredith and Lydia exit out the front doors.

Lydia screams.  Meredith falls.  And Peter stares for a very long, very still moment at the blood-splattered pavement, his expression unreadable, before he turns and looks directly at the rooftop Stiles had chosen to make the shot from.

Too bad for him Stiles is already gone.

 

* * *

 

“You’ve been busy.”

“Mrrfle,” Stiles says in response around a mouthful of curly fries as he spins around in his desk chair to blink at the werewolf currently lounging on his windowsill.  He swallows, looks down at the game controller in his hands and then at Halo playing on the screen behind him before turning back to Peter with a shrug.  “Very busy, so if you could let me get back to kicking virtual butt…”

Peter hums, looking amused, and promptly invites himself in instead of leaving Stiles to his gaming like a decent person.  Or even a normal person.

After all, normal people wouldn’t consider windows a perfectly acceptable mode of entry.

The werewolf saunters across the room and takes a seat at the end of Stiles’ bed.  He never takes his eyes off Stiles, a smirk curved handsomely across his face.  He doesn’t say anything even when Stiles rolls his eyes and spins back to his video game, and for a while, the only sounds between them is the rapid clicking of buttons.

“Was it a gift?”  Peter asks abruptly, five minutes in.

Stiles pauses the game again and glances over his shoulder.  “Was what a gift?”

Peter’s smile widens, something dark and hungry pushing at the fringes like it’s taking all his control to hold it back.  “Come now, Stiles, there’s no need to be modest.  Or shy.  I won’t tell a soul.”

Stiles squints at him.  “Dude, I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Peter honest-to-god pouts, a moue of disappointment that does nothing to hide the gleam in his eyes.  “Dear _Meredith_ , Stiles.”

Stiles grimaces.  “Yeah, I can’t believe someone had the balls to kill her in front of the police station in broad daylight.  Scott’s freaking out, and Lydia was practically comatose for a while.  I hear it’s another Echo kill though?  Not like there are any other assassins left anyway, and the deadpool’s expired.  At least a funeral’s being arranged for her, I think.  It makes Scott and Lydia feel bet-”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Peter purrs, cutting him off and rising fluidly to his feet in the same instance.

Stiles frowns.  “Yeah?”

Then he stops, because Peter takes a step towards him, then another, until he’s only a foot away.  His head tilts to one side, and he seems to consider Stiles for a moment with a calculating kind of scrutiny, mulling something over in his head.

Then he smiles again, just a little, before sinking down, down, all lupine grace as his legs fold underneath him and he ends up on his knees right there in front of Stiles, hands resting loose on his thighs, quiet.

Stiles doesn’t move.  Peter does, but only to lift his chin a bit more like he’s simply getting a better line of sight to Stiles’ face, when in reality, the motion serves nicely to flash the stretch of Peter’s throat.

Another ten seconds tick by before Stiles finally moves, one hand reaching out, fingers skimming the vulnerable artery racing beneath warm flesh.  Peter shudders, and his eyes go hot and half-lidded.  He sways a little, and a soft, animalistic sound rumbles deep in his chest.

Thoughtfully, Stiles curls a gentle palm around the arch of Peter’s neck, absorbing every minute tremble as he splays fingers over muscle and cartilage.

He thinks again, about what it would be like to have this man beside him, just as deadly, just as skilled in his own way, and he _wants_.

“Nine years,” He murmurs.  “Nine years and nobody ever even suspected.  We’re Echoes though.  Nobody _should_.  But still.  Nobody ever looked twice at me.”

Gleeful triumph lights up Peter’s face even as something dazed and drunk lingers in his eyes.  His voice is a velvety rasp when he speaks.  “Maybe you should spend your time with smarter people.”

Stiles chuckles, running a thumb over the bob of Peter’s throat.  “Maybe I should.  Are you volunteering, Peter?”

The hunger is back, along with the same _want_ that courses through Stiles’ veins.  “Are you offering, Stiles?”

Stiles hums noncommittally and doesn’t answer.  He gives the back of Peter’s neck a last light squeeze before letting go.  A disappointed noise leaks out from between Peter’s lips but he doesn’t move even when Stiles gets to his feet and goes over to his closet to retrieve a suitcase stashed just inside.  He returns and places it beside Peter, who glances at him before reaching out to flick open the clasps.

“I don’t deal in _gifts_ , Peter,” Stiles says as they both stare down at the stacks of cash neatly lining the suitcase’s interior.  “I deal in debts owed and debts repaid.  I deal in _justice_.”  He takes a seat again and nudges the suitcase with one foot.  “117 million dollars, rightfully yours.”

Peter brushes a hand over the money before glancing up again.  “And Meredith was justice too?”

Stiles shrugs lazily.  “She wronged you.  Hurt you.  She probably didn’t _intend_ to, with the way her powers worked and how mentally unstable she was, and she thought she was doing the right thing even, but _she_ still did it.  And then she blamed it all on you.  I took exception to that.  Consider it a debt repaid for saving me from the nogitsune.”

Peter’s grin is fanged.  “You were far less interesting with someone else in the driver’s seat.”

Stiles snorts.  “Exactly how long have you known anyway?”

“About your little side job?”  Peter’s head cants in thought before he admits, “Not until the Chemist.  I suspected when the Mute died, but I wasn’t certain.  The Chemist though was personal, and it might’ve been a prior grudge, but he was killed almost right after he invaded the high school, and I heard that one of the teachers had to be hospitalized?  The crazy one you’re fond of?  It wasn’t hard to connect the dots after that.  And once I went back and matched quite the number of deaths in the news with times I _knew_ you weren't in town, I had my confirmation.”  Peter peers up at him with a smirk.  “But even before recent events, I always knew there was something different about you, sweetheart.”

He pauses and then shuffles forward, still on his knees.  “And now I know for certain,” His voice has dropped to something barely above a whisper, eyes intent on Stiles, reverent.  “I could help, you know I could.  Let me hunt with you, Stiles.”

Stiles reaches out, fingers tangling in Peter’s hair, something possessive uncoiling in his chest when he thinks again of working with a partner who knows exactly what he is and only wants _more_.  They would be his.   _Peter_ would be his.  His to teach, his to protect, his to keep.

An Echo was always supposed to have a partner.  There was only one per generation but they came in a set.  When his babcia was the Echo, she told him stories of how his dziadek hunted beside her, an echo to her echo, and their reputation resounded across Europe.  And then his mother took up the mantle, and while his dad didn’t hunt, he was always a deft hand at erasing the evidence and depositing the bodies for her.

And now here is Stiles, and here is Peter, and he thinks _yes, this is right, this is what I’ve been waiting for_.

He tugs at Peter’s hair, then let's go and instead runs his hands down the werewolf’s arms to take his hands before drawing him up and into his lap.  They’re about the same height, and Peter is a comfortable weight balanced on his thighs.

Peter arches a questioning eyebrow, which gives way to surprise and then a delighted sort of pleasure when Stiles leans forward and brushes lips over his.

“The deadpool is expired,” Stiles murmurs into Peter’s mouth.  “But I think we both have unfinished business with a certain Argent, right?”

Peter’s grin is positively feral against his lips.  He steals a kiss, hard and hot, before drawing back again.  “I do believe we have.  And fortunately for us, I even know exactly where she is.”

Stiles’ grin mirrors his.  “Perfect.  There’s our first date planned then.”

Peter laughs, easy and free, and Stiles finally lets himself bask in the realization that he actually gets to have this.

Someone who understands.

 

* * *

 

The berserkers are easy enough to destroy.  Single shot to their bear skulls and they stay down.  It’s almost insulting.

Kate goes down almost as easily without her minions.  They’ve lured her out of the sewers and into the Preserve.  Stiles shoots out her kneecaps from fifty feet away in the boughs of a tree, and then Peter is on her, ripping her limb from limb.

A debt owed.  A debt repaid.

 

* * *

 

They burn her body and drop off her decapitated head on the doorstep of the Argent house where the Calaveras are staying.  A single bullet hole is all that mars her otherwise immaculate head, not a single claw mark to point fingers at any werewolves.

 

* * *

 

“Teach me how to shoot a gun,” Peter says later, naked and on his back, soft sheets underneath him and a boy with feral eyes above.  He runs hands along ribs, down the long slope of a back, and settling at the jut of fine-boned hips.

Stiles has one elbow propping him up even as he sprawls on top of Peter, awash in the dim light of the moon pouring through the window, gloriously bare against Peter’s own body.  Deceptively slender fingers trace nonsensical patterns over Peter’s shoulders, collarbones, the hollow of his throat.  “I thought you preferred a more hands-on approach.”

“I do,” Peter agrees.  “But… I want to know what it’s like for you.  I want you to show me how it feels.”

Stiles’ smile is a lovely thing, pretty and dark and wild as the untamed wind.  Warm breath grazes Peter’s mouth before chapped lips press a kiss to his jawline.

“It would be my pleasure.”

It would be Peter’s too.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because there are days when you just want to slay the world but can’t so you get your favourite characters to do it for you.

 

“This place is one of your safehouses?”

“Were you picturing a secret underground hideout in the sewers? Weapons wall to wall?”

“Well, maybe not the _sewers_.”

Stiles snorts and shakes his head as he slides a key into one of the keyholes on the elevator panel, and the click of it takes them all the way up to the penthouse floor.  “Please, this isn’t a movie, Peter.  Besides, you think my family left me anything but the best?”

Peter hums thoughtfully and doesn’t say anything else as the elevator doors slide open and they step out into an empty hallway.  There’s a pair of double doors at the end, which requires two key cards, another key, a passcode, and a thumbprint scanner to open.

“If I forget, remind me to key you in later,” Stiles tells him, and Peter has to fight down the urge to beam.  “And everywhere else of course.  I don’t actually have to go to each place to do it, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

The doors swing open to reveal a spacious penthouse.  It was late afternoon when their flight touched down at the airport, and it’s later still now, evening encroaching through the expansive windows that decorate the interior. Flames are already flickering in the electric fireplace though, and a few flicks of the light switches quickly brighten up the main sitting area.  Beyond the windows, city lights have already started winking into existence, and it’s a sight Peter hasn’t seen since he was in San Francisco for work before the fire.  Beacon Hills doesn’t have views like this after all, and Peter will always prefer the woods to city life, but a change of scenery once in a while is nice too.

“Bedrooms are upstairs,” Stiles says, moving into the room and tossing his travelbag on one of the couches before proceeding to slide open the balcony doors to let some fresh air in.  “Kitchen’s back that way but it isn’t stocked so I figure we can just call for room service.”

“I’m surprised you let the staff have access to this place,” Peter remarks, toeing off his shoes and dropping off his bag as well before strolling out onto the balcony to peer over the side.  They’re the tallest building for miles around by a good several floors, which was probably deliberate on Stiles’ part - no need to worry about getting shot from afar.

“Well somebody needs to keep the penthouse clean; I’m not around enough for that.”  Stiles calls back from somewhere out of sight, his voice muffled by a wall or two.  “And they only have access in here once a week.  Their cards and code don’t work any other time.  Room service will know to just leave the food in the hall too, and they don’t ask any questions they might have.  Well-paid employees are efficient employees.”

Peter pauses to consider that wording for a moment, then ducks back inside just as Stiles rounds a corner and returns with a cordless phone held to his ear.  The boy blinks at him, then smirks.  “Did you think I just owned this penthouse?  Nah, my family owns the entire hotel chain.”

Someone answers at the other end of the line, and Stiles gets distracted with the dinner menu, so Peter takes the time to wander around some more.  Not for the first time, he wonders just how rich Stiles is.  Considering the teenage assassin earned several hundred million dollars in a week without ever even leaving his hometown, Peter is inclined to believe _very_.  And that’s on top of his inheritance, which apparently includes this hotel.

He climbs the stairs, pokes his head in each of the rooms, admiring the sleek designs.  Each bedroom has its own bathroom, which has both a shower stall and a bathtub installed, the latter of which sits next to the floor-to-ceiling windows for an amazing view.

Peter likes his creature comforts, he can readily admit that much.  The Hale Pack came from old money, and he earned enough as a lawyer to have been able to afford just about anything he wanted.

“Peter!”  Stiles shouts from downstairs.  “Is halibut okay?”

“Sounds fine!”  Peter calls back.  He hasn't eaten fish in a while.

There's another set of double doors past the bedroom, and when he opens that, he finds a flight of stairs leading upwards.  It leads, unsurprisingly, to a rooftop patio, with sofas arranged around two separate fire pits.  He makes his way over to the edge, fenced off by glass, and simply stands there enjoying the way the wind tugs at his hair and clothes.

“For a creature of the earth,” comes Stiles’ voice from behind him, “You don't seem to mind being very high up.”

Peter half-turns, then relaxes again when he feels Stiles’ body settle against his back.  “Werewolves can like heights too.  We’re not _actual_ wolves.”

Stiles snickers like he’s imagining it, but he also hooks his chin over Peter’s shoulder so that their cheeks brush together, and Peter is more than onboard with the subtle scenting.  He’s still amazed he gets to have this when - just a few weeks ago - he'd lost his money, Kate was still running around, he'd almost been assassinated himself, and he'd found out that even the privacy of his mind, the one thing he thought was at least still his alone, had been violated too when he was comatose because apparently the universe didn't think being burned alive, left to die a slow and agonizing death, and stuck helpless in his own body while strangers touched him every damn day was enough - he had to have some banshee girl rape his mind too before turning around years later and convincing everyone to blame _her_ actions and twisted reasoning on _him_.

Well, almost everyone.  He'd rarely been as turned on as he was that day he crossed the street towards the station, wary of a trap - perhaps the good Sheriff had been persuaded to put a bullet in Peter’s head after all - but going anyway because Lydia's cryptic _come to the station, there's something you have to see_ made him curious enough to risk it.  Besides, killing someone in the middle of the police station with at least half a dozen witnesses around?  Even the Sheriff couldn't get away with that, and Peter would just make sure he had an exit at all times.

Then dear Meredith was killed - _executed_ \- right in front of him, and Peter didn't even try to scramble for cover, wasn’t even afraid in that moment because he knew he’d already be dead if he was the target.  He barely heard Lydia scream, far more intent on the fact that a headshot was _Echo’s_ signature, and Echo was _Stiles_.

And Stiles had just gone out of his way to plant a bullet in the crazy banshee’s skull _after making sure Peter was there to see it_.

The deadpool was over.  There was no bounty on Meredith’s head anymore, and from what Peter knows about Echo - famous enough that Peter's heard whispers of them as far back as when he was still Talia’s left hand - the assassin wouldn't kill someone not worth anything.  Well, they wouldn’t kill innocents either but Meredith was hardly that.  Not truly evil, even Peter could acknowledge, but unstable and fanatical about her belief in the insanity she pulled from Peter’s mind, most definitely.  Certainly not just some misguided girl manipulated by evil Peter the way everyone else in the interrogation room seemed to believe.

So there was no reason for Echo to kill Meredith.  No reason at all except _for Peter_.

And nobody, not a single person in the entirety of Peter’s life, had ever killed for him before.

It was a heady realization, and it made him giddy with want.  He was going to wait until things died down again before confronting Stiles, maybe take care of Kate first or wait to see if Stiles might get rid of her too, but Peter couldn’t wait after that little display.

He went straight to Stiles- well no, first he deleted the message from “Lydia”, and because contrary to popular belief he isn’t _completely_ heartless he waited until Lydia was escorted into the station, and _then_ he went to track down Stiles.  The Sheriff saw him, but to Peter’s suspicious consternation, the man didn’t try to stop him, only eyed him with something like trepidation and resignation before sighing and blocking one of his deputies’ line of sight for a moment to give Peter the opportunity to slip away.

It was rather confusing, right up until Stiles explained - later - that his dad knew, was in fact Claudia’s partner back in the day, the way Peter will be to Stiles, if not in the _exact_ same way, so the Sheriff wouldn’t give him anymore grief even if he did have misgivings about Peter.

It didn’t really matter either way, in the end.  Stiles wants him, and that’s all Peter cares about.  At best, he had hoped Stiles might let him tag along on a few of his jobs.  He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask for more if Stiles allowed him even that much.  But Stiles had surprised him, had given him what he asked for and more, for reasons Peter still doesn’t quite understand, but sometimes, when he catches Stiles watching him, he thinks maybe the things he sees when he looks at Stiles - _kindred spirit, anchor, Pack, equal_ \- are the same things Stiles sees when he looks at Peter.

Whatever the exact reasons though, they ensure that Peter isn’t simply an audience or distraction or even accomplice.  It’s as sudden as it is exhilarating and slightly terrifying but Stiles calls him _partner_ , and Peter may not be able to name a firearm by the sound of its gunshot or assemble and disassemble a rifle blindfolded, but Stiles insists he use his own methods anyway, and he’s been teaching Peter everything he thinks Peter should know and even everything Peter asks to know - from printing his own fake passports to navigating the bounty forums on the darknet to letting Peter trace the words tattooed on his skin.

 _“Everyone in my family gets one sooner or later,”_ Stiles explains.   _“It’s tradition.  It can be a motto, or a goal, or whatever.  But they’re always words we live and die by.  These are mine.  I picked it after the nogitsune.  It’s a bit cliche maybe, but I think it fits.  And I think… I think I forgot it for a while.  So for me, it’s a reminder.”_

The words spiral down the length of Stiles’ left thigh, starkly black against otherwise unblemished skin:

**_You have one life. Don’t waste it._ **

Peter likes rubbing a thumb over them when they’re curled up in bed together and he’s pondering once again over what his own words will be.  Stiles has told him he doesn’t have to because they both know Peter will need fire to make sure the tattoo sticks, but they also both know he’s going to do it anyway.  He _wants_ it.  It’ll be fairly quick compared to his worst experiences with fires, Stiles will be there, and the tattoo artist won’t be taking deliberate enjoyment out of Peter’s pain.  He’ll be fine, and more importantly, since he’s decided he’s in this life with Stiles for the long haul now, he wants to be fully integrated into it, traditions and all.

It’s Stiles’ family legacy, old and vast and bloody, and he wants Peter to be a part of it.  How can Peter possibly reject even just a single aspect of it when it aligns so well with his own beliefs?

He wonders now, briefly, what it might’ve been like to have been born into a family like Stiles’.  For all that the Hales were werewolves, came from a long line of them in fact, and had held the territory that Beacon Hills now sits on before it was ever even an idea of a town, he always felt his pack had become… diminished, in some ways.  Talia would call them _civilized_ , but Peter always thought them _weak_ , talking when a show of force would’ve served better, and ceding ground to appease other packs and hunters when they should’ve stood firm.  Ennis’ actions against Derek and a human girl born on Hale territory should’ve had his throat ripped out.  And what Talia was even thinking allowing Deucalion to hold his idealistic little peacekeeping meeting with Gerard on their land, he has no idea, but that came back to bite them in the ass, didn’t it?  Torturing Cora and forcing Derek to kill his own betas when Derek wasn’t even Deucalion’s target spoke more of vengeance than anything else.

And even when a show of force was the only way, it was always up to Peter to carry it out, and those actions were always, _always_ considered shameful and never spoken of again once the order had been given.  Peter was a last resort Talia used and pretended she didn’t, all while keeping up the facade of charismatic diplomacy.

Peter didn’t _mind_ his job, exactly.  He just… wanted to be part of a pack who valued him for what he did for them.  It didn’t even have to be a lot; a little acknowledgement would’ve been enough.  But Talia either swept it all under the carpet or subtly villainized him to the rest of their family.  And that was something Peter always hated.

In the end, it didn’t matter anyway.  Peter alone as the sole safeguard wasn’t enough.  Hunters like Kate and her ilk came sweeping in anyway and dared to strike against a pack as old and non-hostile as they were.  There were dozens of other packs Kate could’ve gone after, _had_ gone after.  The Hale Pack just became one of them, because they had grown stagnant and complacent, and Talia may not have seen it, but their enemies certainly did.

Stiles would never have let it get that far.  Like he dealt with those who went after his friends on the deadpool, Stiles took them all out before they became a problem, and he made quite the profit on top of that too.

A chin digs pointedly into his shoulder, and Peter jolts back into the present, startled.  Then he smirks a little and glances sideways at the boy still draped over his back.  “Feeling neglected, sweetheart?”

“Very,” Stiles huffs indignantly even as a grin tugs at the corner of his lips.  “You’re thinking too much.  I take you to a different country and set us up in a lavish penthouse, and you haven’t even told me what you think of it.”

Peter chuckles and snakes an arm around Stiles’ waist, pressing his nose to Stiles’ temple for a moment before drawing back again.  “How remiss of me. Well, it’s big.”

He pauses, and Stiles elbows him in the ribs.  “That’s it?  Peter!”

Peter laughs.  “My apologies, darling.”  He glances around with an approving eye.  “I like it.  Very modern.  Luxurious without being too opulent.  I have yet to test the bed or taste the food though so I’m reserving judgement.”

Stiles snorts.  “Right, bed and food, most important part of the hotel experience.  Alright,” He untangles himself from Peter, smiling a little when Peter’s arm tightens around his waist.  “Food should almost be here so let’s get back downstairs.  I’m starving anyway.”

Peter finally lets go but reaches out to take Stiles’ hand instead.  “Should’ve eaten on the plane.”

“It was _airplane food_.  I thought you of all people would complain about that.”

Peter shrugs.  “Wasn’t so bad.”

“Yeah, cuz you washed it down with alcohol.”

“Now the _alcohol_ was bad.”

Stiles rolls his eyes.  “Well I ordered a bottle of wine for dinner.  You can console yourself with that.”

Peter wrinkles his nose.  “We’ll see.”  He arches an eyebrow at Stiles.  “Should you even be drinking?”

The eyeroll is far more pronounced this time.  “Old enough to kill, old enough to drink.  Now come on.”  A bell chimes throughout the penthouse.  “That would be the food, let’s go!”

 

* * *

 

The food, as it turns out, is excellent.  And the pinot noir compliments it very well.

 

* * *

 

They’re not going after their target until tomorrow, so after dinner, Peter is free to read a bit while Stiles calls his dad to let him know they’ve arrived safely.  Then he carries both their bags upstairs to the master bedroom before making his way into the bathroom to fill the tub for a long soak once he’s finished in the shower.  He isn’t surprised when Stiles slips in a little while later, already shirtless and down to his boxers and in the process of stripping even that off.  Peter doesn’t bother hiding his appreciation as he lets his gaze wander along the lean lines and flat wiry muscle that make up Stiles’ body, honed to deadly efficiency.

Stiles meets his gaze, and a grin as pleased as it is impish crosses his face.  He turns and steps into the shower stall without trying to cover up at all.  He's not particularly body-shy or even awkward about nudity the way the average human - especially a teenager - tends to be, but then, Peter’s seen the scars.  It's probably not conducive to an assassin’s continued survival if they're concerned about flashing someone should their clothes get ripped off in a fight or stripped by a captor, and Stiles must have learned that lesson early on because he can walk around in his birthday suit when it’s just the two of them without blushing at all.

All the better for Peter to enjoy.

He knows Stiles is seventeen.  He knows sleeping naked together in the same bed and the kissing and mutual handjobs they’ve exchanged would be considered illegal in most places.  But the lines are already more than a little blurred considering what Stiles does for a living, and Stiles - if Peter actually brought it up - would probably say something along the lines of _old enough to kill, old enough to fuck_.  And they haven’t actually fucked yet.

Peter actually isn’t sure how to define their relationship in exact words.  When he first approached Stiles, he honestly wasn’t asking for more than to follow along when the boy went after another bounty.  That’s not to say Peter wouldn’t have eventually tried to coax Stiles into bed with him - he absolutely would have - but it wasn’t something he was angling for right away no matter how much it thrilled him to see Stiles kill someone for him.  At the very least, it was an ambiguous reminder at the back of his mind, to wait until Stiles turned eighteen before pursuing that goal, if only for propriety’s sake.

But then Stiles kissed him, and Peter’s never been one to turn away something he wants when it’s offered to him, rare enough as that is.  He was more than willing to take what Stiles gave him and reciprocate, and _Stiles_ seemed to assume that that meant they were in a relationship now, and not just any relationship but one that’s exclusive and faithful and forever.  In the face of that, terms like _boyfriend_ or even _lover_ don’t seem quite enough.

Not that Peter’s complaining.  It’s slightly bewildering, how quickly Stiles decided Peter was now his and his alone and there would be no other ever, and probably vice-versa, but Peter figures there are worse things in the world than the reassurance of knowing he now has a place in someone’s life that nobody else will ever be able to take from him.  He doesn’t need words to value it.

He sinks into the bath with a contented sigh, smiling when Stiles joins him, stretching out at the other end of the tub, their legs tangling in the middle, and it’s easy for a quiet intimacy to settle between them.  It’s well and truly dark now, and the cityscape outside is a sea of glittering lights.

“Early day tomorrow?”  Peter finally asks once they’ve lingered long enough that the water’s become noticeably cooler, lazily cracking open an eye to watch Stiles stir and stretch a bit before sitting up properly.

“Hmm,” Stiles shrugs, leaning over the side of the tub to pluck a towel from where he left it on the ground to scrub it through his hair.  “Best thing about being self-employed - you get to set your own schedule.  But yeah, we probably should.  Still need to do surveillance.”

He pauses to search Peter’s face for a moment, and a slightly wondering smile twitches at his lips.  Peter frowns.  “What?”

“You’re really okay with all this,” Stiles gestures vaguely around them, and there’s a hint of awe in his voice that makes Peter preen.

Still, “Why in the world wouldn’t I be?”  Peter scoffs, reaching out to switch on the taps, simultaneously pulling the plug on the bath as well.  The water begins to drain, and he and Stiles both haul themselves up, water sluicing off them both in rivulets.

Stiles looks amused this time.  “I _kill_ people for money, Peter.   _Bad_ people, but still.  Can you imagine Scott’s reaction if he ever finds out about this?”

Peter tosses him a withering look from behind his own towel as he dries off.  “Are you seriously comparing me to _Scott McCall?_  I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted in my life.”

Stiles barks out a laugh, and Peter rolls his eyes.  “I’ve killed people too, Stiles, in case you’ve forgotten.  Technically, it even used to be my job.  I just didn’t get paid for it.  Trust me, hunting down the Kates and Gerards of the world won’t be any hardship for me.”

Stiles hums again and saunters over to Peter to press a lingering kiss to his lips, one that Peter wastes no time returning.

“Good,” Stiles says decisively, nipping at Peter’s bottom lip before pulling back, and grinning when Peter growls playfully at him.

 

* * *

 

They turn in for the night, rolling into a bed that Peter deems satisfactory.  Stiles makes himself comfortable beside him, an arm and a leg thrown possessively over Peter like some large territorial cat.  Peter wraps his own arm around the boy, his palm coming to rest over the rough line of a scar curving across Stiles’ back.

Stiles doesn’t have that many, and Peter doesn’t know the stories behind all of them.  Most are faint and white with time but a few remain puckered and deep, healed but unfading.  There’s one in particular that slices across the femoral artery of Stiles’ right thigh, messy and dark, and sometimes, looking at it makes Peter wish the one who put it there was still alive so he could make them pay, but Stiles told him only one person walked away from that fight and it sure as heck wasn’t the other guy.

They fall asleep like that, and they’ll wake up like that too, two killers curled together in each other’s arms like there’s no safer place to be, and the inherent trust of it, Peter thinks later, in the morning, when he wakes up first and finds Stiles still cuddled next to him, is something that will never fully stop amazing him.

 

* * *

 

“This is creepy,” Peter mutters.  “And that’s coming from me.”

Stiles snorts, lowering his binoculars and absently sketching out the rest of the side entrance of the Goff home that they’re spying on from the shadows of a house currently under construction two houses over on the opposite side of the street.  It’s a Saturday so there’s nobody working, and even better, the Goffs are home.

And everything about that home, Peter reflects as he takes another look through his own binoculars, is creepily symmetrical.  They’re in a suburbia neighbourhood so everyone has their lawns and neat houses and paved driveways.  But they also have wilting shrubs or loose roof shingles or faded stairs where the paint’s flaked off from time and weather.

The Goffs’ place isn’t like that.  There are exactly two maples in their front yard, one on either side, and they look identical, down to the placement of the outstretched branches.  The grass is perfectly mowed and perfectly green, and there’s even a picket fence out front, so white it looks newly painted.  There are two identical cement pathways leading into the back, one on either side, and the rosebushes lining them contain _exactly ten white roses each_ , grown in _exactly the same place_.  The house itself has six windows, four square ones above, two on the left, two on the right, and two long rectangular ones below, one on the left, one on the right, divided by one set of doors built smack in the middle with the house number nailed above it: 5665.  The muted notes of some classical music can be heard through the walls.

There’s no garage in the front but Peter would bet good money that there would’ve been two if there were.  But the Goffs are apparently very eco-friendly, so they don’t drive.

Even if Peter didn’t already read everything he and Stiles managed to compile on their next two bounties before arriving here, he would’ve still thought something was very wrong with this household.

He catches a shadow moving behind one of the white lace curtains on the far right window, only for a moment before it passes out of sight again, not for the first time.

“They’re good at staying hidden,” Peter murmurs thoughtfully.  He remembers the past two days spent tailing the couple to their respective workplaces - Geoffrey Goff to an security company, Gina Goff to a flower shop.  “Or in a crowd.”

“Very, Stiles agrees.  “They know what they’re doing.  Awkward angles for making a clean shot too, even when they’re out in the open.”

Peter glances at him.  “You could do it.”

Stiles’ smile is sharp.  “I could, if this was that kind of job.  But this needs a more personal touch so it’ll have to be here at the house.  Quietly though.  Someone will probably call the cops if they hear a gunshot.”

Peter nods, turning back to the house.  Geoffrey and Gina Goff, husband and wife, so normal on the surface that they come off… just _off_.  He and Stiles dug further and discovered a partiality for young children.  Suspected in over a dozen kidnappings and subsequent murders, but slippery enough that nothing’s ever been proven.  The last victim they were suspected of taking happened to be a mob boss’ eight-year-old daughter back in Chicago, found three weeks after she was taken, carved up and raped before being dumped in a back alley, with the Goffs long gone.  That was when the bounties went out - 100 million, _each_ , for anyone who catches them and paints international news with their bloody remains.

It was Peter who chose these two to pursue.  People who go after children deserve to scream their way into the afterlife.

He lowers his binoculars once more, cocking his head instead as he listens for their targets’ heartbeats.  “...They must have a soundproofed room in there, Stiles.  I can hear them, but only most of the time. I don't think there's another kid in there, their heartbeats don't disappear long enough for them to be… indulging, but there's definitely a room in there I can't hear through.”

Stiles makes a concurring sound at the back of his throat.  “Makes sense.  I doubt they’d indulge in their hobby elsewhere, not if they’re playing happy families in good old suburbia.”

Peter’s jaw tightens.  He’s read the articles in the local newspaper.  Two kids in this part of the city have already been abducted and killed since the Goffs arrived four months ago, each of them found a few weeks later in two different dumpsters downtown.  “Do you think they’re preparing to take another kid?  It's been about a month since the last one was found.”

Stiles doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.  He says instead, face gone eerily blank, but Peter can hear the warning anyway, “Earliest we can hit the place is tonight.  It’s almost six.  People who work on Saturdays will be getting home soon.”  As if on cue, one car, then another, turn onto the street.  “And we haven’t finished mapping out their security.  We won’t get away clean if we try to go in now.”

And the main rule of an Echo kill is to not be seen.  Let the whole world recognize your handiwork, but Echoes remain invisible.

Peter nods tersely and reminds himself that he is not Derek or Scott, not an incompetent fool, and charging headlong into an unknown situation is beneath him.  He returns his focus to the task at hand, and in his peripheral, Stiles nods once in approval.

“Let’s go round the back then.”

 

* * *

 

It’s just after two in the morning when Stiles hacks the Goffs’ security system and shuts the whole thing down.  Even for Stiles, it takes a bit of electronic manoeuvring because Geoffrey clearly isn’t in the security business for his good looks, but Stiles slips through, and the house goes black.

“They’re still sleeping,” Peter mutters as they ghost through the yard and break in through the backdoors on silent feet.

There are a bunches of flowers inside, everything from lavender to jasmine to hyacinths, potted and placed on almost every flat surface, and the smell almost makes Peter go into a sneezing fit.  But also too, because he’s a werewolf, even this many flowers isn’t enough to cover up the scent of blood and sex and glee and terror underneath.

He looks at Stiles, who is already watching him with calm, cool eyes, and Peter wonders if he’s guessed what the flowers are for.

Without a word, they move through the house until they find the stairs leading down to the basement.  The five padlocks waiting for them are easily picked, and Peter almost gags when the stench triples upon the opening of the door.

There’s no one inside, thankfully.  There’s a rack of knives on one wall though, rope and plastic tarp stacked in a corner, and despite the smell, there’s a sterility to everything that reminds Peter of a hospital.

Stiles nudges his arm, and they head back upstairs, not stopping until they’re standing right outside the bedroom where the Goffs are still slumbering away.

Stiles turns to him, his face without expression, his voice without inflection when he speaks.  “Man or woman?”

Peter considers it for a moment.  Then his eyes flash, and his hands flex with a hint of claws.  “I want the woman.”

Stiles nods, turns back to the door, and pushes it open.

Somehow, Peter doesn’t even see him move.  He thinks he blinks, but one moment Stiles is still standing beside him, the next, he’s by the bed and hauling an abruptly awoken but understandably disoriented Geoffrey Goff up by the front of his sleep shirt.  The man only has time to open his mouth, eyes bulging with shock, before the flat of Stiles’ palm glances against his temple and knocks him back out with one decisively calculated blow.

Peter stares for a split second longer, and then Gina Goff stirs on her side of the bed, and the movement snaps at him to quit standing around gawking like an amateur.  He lunges, vaulting clean over the bed and closing a hand around the woman’s throat before she can see what’s going on.

She chokes, awake in an instant and clawing at Peter’s iron grip, no breath for air, but Peter only squeezes harder, listening to the frantic pump of her heart, the weakening jerk of her limbs, the light dimming from her eyes, and he only lets go when she slumps, and her body tells him he’s toeing the line between unconsciousness and death.

He releases her, and she flops back onto the mattress, bruises already purpling her neck.  He glances at Stiles who tips his head at the door, Geoffrey Goff’s deadweight slung over one shoulder.  Peter follows, lifting Gina Goff with ease, grimacing when Stiles reminds him flatly, “Burn her fingernails down afterwards.  Or cut off her fingers.  It doesn’t matter.  But she scratched your bare hands, and we don’t leave evidence.  Make sure you get rid of it.”

Peter nods, making a mental note to buy gloves for next time, with open tips for his claws.

They make their way back to the basement and dump the couple on the floor.  Peter shuts the door behind them, and Stiles flicks on the only light.

They both turn to look down at the Goffs, and Peter begins to smile, his wolf already itching to do some damage.  Beside him, Stiles raises a hand, and the light overhead reflects off the blade of a knife.

“Now then,” Stiles’ mouth curls into his first smile of the night.  “Let’s get to work.”

 

* * *

 

The basement looks like a massacre took place by the time they’re finished, the Goffs cut open and broken, their faces still perfectly recognizable but the rest of their corpses mutilated beyond the skills of even the best mortuary cosmetologists.  Their faces are frozen in twin expressions of horror, only allowed the relief of death long after their voices gave out from screaming.

Peter is up to his elbows in blood.  His clothes are beyond saving.  There’s a sink in the back so he’s washing up there, and fortunately, he had the foresight to bring extra clothes.

Stiles on the other hand is almost completely spotless.  The bottoms of his shoes are soaked, and there are flecks of blood dotting the backs of his hands, his pants, and shirt, but they’re certainly not drenched and sticky the way Peter’s are.  The only weapon Stiles used was a single knife, and Geoffrey Goff still looks like he’s been taken through the slaughterhouse.

Peter looks at his own kill and smirks, eyes burning blue.  Half of Gina Goff’s skeleton has been turned inside out.  Peter managed to lay out about a third of her ribcage - snapping off each individual bone - on the floor on either side of her torso before she finally bled to death.  Not before Peter shredded her hands though - and feet, just to be thorough - beyond recognition.  He scrubbed his own blood from them first of course, just in case.

Stiles fishes out a camera, snaps a couple dozen pictures, and then tucks it away once more.  Then he pulls out a small revolver and plants a bullet in each of the Goffs’ heads.

An Echo’s calling card.

He pockets the gun and meets Peter’s gaze next.  Some of the assassin in him has finally receded again, still there, still watching, but no longer at the forefront.

“I’m gonna make a trip around the house,” Stiles tells him.  “Make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Peter nods.  “I’ll finish packing up down here.”

He glances down at himself.  And cleaning up.

He watches the blood swirl away down the drain.  He thinks of the dead children, then of the two corpses behind him.

He smiles.

 

* * *

 

They leave as silently as they came.  They call in an anonymous noise complaint on the Goff house only after they're back at the penthouse.  Peter’s dirty clothes are stuffed in a garbage bag, and Stiles takes it up to the one of the rooftop fire pits for incineration while Peter goes to grab a very long shower.

Stiles is already freshly showered himself and dozing in bed by the time Peter gets out.  He crawls under the blankets, and Stiles immediately rolls onto his side to sprawl his limbs over Peter, a comfortable weight that Peter welcomes more than he expects to.

“You feeling okay?”  Stiles mumbles into his shoulder.

Peter huffs a somewhat exasperated breath.  “Stiles, it’s me.  I _have_ killed before.”

He gets a reprimanding nip to his collarbone for that.  “Yeah, but it was still your first assassination.  Kate didn’t really count.  This one was… different.”

And it was.  For all that it was still murder, and a fairly gruesome one at that, Peter can understand what Stiles is getting at.  It felt different, compared to his vengeance spree when he was fresh out of his coma and high on Alpha power, struggling for control and desperate for pack bonds, and there were times his head hurt and his memories grew foggy and he couldn’t really _think_.  By the end of it all, dying was almost a relief.

Different too, from the dirty midnight jobs he did for Talia, removing someone she needed gone, burying the body in the middle of nowhere, and then slogging home and sneaking back inside and getting up in the morning just to pretend he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.  It was necessary, he knew, and he didn’t regret doing it - he was left hand, it was his duty - but sometimes, back then, when he was dragging around a corpse under the cold light of the moon, standing waist-deep in a grave by himself with not a soul around him for miles in every direction, he had looked around, looked at himself, at the tacky cooling blood on his hands, and he had never felt lonelier.

This time was different.  He still had a target, still had blood to wash off afterwards, but he also had Stiles, right there beside him every step of the way, and if anyone deserved to die, the two lives they found and hunted and ended tonight certainly qualified.

He feels… at peace with himself in a way killing for Talia never did, and vengeance for his dead family only ever left him feeling empty, like it was never enough.  It didn’t fill the void left by the dozen broken pack bonds he once had.  It wasn’t even all that satisfying, not really.

But tonight, tonight was good.  He can still hear the echo of the Goffs’ screams, and he hopes they suffered even half as much as they made the children they kidnapped suffer.

“I’m fine,” He says at last, turning his head to nuzzle Stiles’ hair.  “Tired though.”  Which is surprising.  It wasn’t like he overexerted himself tonight.

“Hmm,” Stiles nods a bit.  “Probably the adrenaline drop.  You just need some sleep.”  A thumb sweeps rhythmically back and forth over the curve of Peter’s hipbone.  “Did you like it?”

Peter casts his mind back to the methodical way he took his prey apart, piece by piece.  It’s not that he particularly likes making a mess, per se, but he does like drawing it out.  He’s always thought quick deaths were a mercy, and that hasn’t changed.

“I did,” He admits, and he can still feel the visceral gush of blood, hot and thicker than you’d expect, dripping from his hands.  Although... “Did it take too long though?  Cleaning up I mean?”  Because at the end, Stiles was waiting on him to finish, and Peter knows it.

He feels Stiles shrug against him.  “No.  I mean it doesn’t really matter.  If that’s what you prefer, then it’s what you prefer.  Every kill should take as long or as short a time as you need.  I don’t take as long because getting blood on my clothes annoys me, and I’ve always been a sniper first.  But you’re more hands-on, and that’s fine too.  I told you, you have to find your own preferences.  And then find your favourite, and that will become what you’re known by when you do it enough times.”

He pauses and lets Peter digest that before adding, “It’s good to be versatile though.  I prefer a sniper rifle, but obviously, I can do what I did tonight too.  Some clients want an example made, or even hard proof.  But next job, we’ll pick something that doesn’t require as much work.  You don’t have to use a gun, but you should be quick about it.  In and out, pictures if you can, and we can spend the rest of the time sightseeing or something.”

Peter snorts, although he has to admit that sounds like a fun weekend getaway.  “Aren’t the pictures required?”

“Nah,” Stiles shakes his head.  “It’s just an extra guarantee I like to have, to make sure I get paid.  Something I picked up from Babcia, but she operated during the Cold War, and there were a lot of people that needed killing quietly, and just as many people doing the killing, so sometimes, assassins and hitmen crashed each other’s parties, and Babcia always hated it when she didn’t get paid or someone took credit for her work, so she started the picture thing.  But these days we have internet, and we already called dibs on the bounties for two weeks, so pictures technically aren’t necessary.  Since I always call in the police afterwards, word gets around that they’re dead pretty quickly, and the credit automatically goes to us so long as it happens within the time frame.  It would be stupid for someone else to try and go after claimed bounties - they wouldn’t get paid.  And they’d also land themselves on my shit list.  I don’t much like someone encroaching on my jobs either.”

Peter snickers lazily.  The indignant possessiveness here is oddly endearing, but it’s not like he can’t understand this too.  He has enough predator instincts that the mere thought of someone else stealing his rightful prey makes him bristle.

“Of course,” Stiles tacks on.  “There are some clients who hire multiple assassins to go after the same target, or something like the deadpool might happen.  That’s when it’s a bit of a race, and you’d probably be better off snapping a few photos then.  Some assassins still have a weird kind of honour though.  Like, I wouldn’t claim a hit I wasn’t responsible for, and there are others like that too, but some _aren’t_ like that so it’s always simpler to just have preemptive measures in place.”

Peter hums, filing that knowledge away for future consideration.  He’s not sure if competing against other assassins would be something he’d enjoy, but it might be interesting to try.

For now though, he cracks a yawn before shuffling around a bit until he’s on his side as well.  Stiles makes an amused sound but doesn’t protest, spooning up behind Peter instead and plastering himself against Peter’s back.  Lips press against the back of his neck, and Peter lets his eyes fall shut.

“You did really good tonight,” Stiles whispers even as Peter begins drifting off.  “I’m glad you came with me.”

Peter can’t quite dredge up the appropriate words, but it’s easy enough to let his wolf come to the surface.  A rough purr rumbles in his throat in response, and then he’s slipping into slumber, the scent of Stiles’ amused contentment following him down.

 

* * *

 

They get paid two days later, 200 million split between them, and Peter feels something like pride as he stares at his bank account through his laptop screen.  That’s never happened before either.  Well no, he remembers the satisfaction and triumph of winning case after case in his earlier years as a lawyer but that got old over time.  And it’s not that he never enjoyed killing those he thought deserved it, even back before the fire, but Talia always made it such a chore at the same time.

He logs out and powers his laptop down before stowing that away too with the rest of his belongings.  It’s time to go home, and Peter already misses this.  Not this place, exactly, although the penthouse is very comfortable, but there’s a certain kind of freedom here when it’s just him and Stiles that Beacon Hills doesn’t allow.  For all that it’s his family’s lands ( _and it’s not even that anymore, is it?_ ), the town is stifling to him, and Peter’s not sure if that stems from all the tragedy he’s suffered there or if it’s because of the sheer number of enemies that McCall and his utter incompetence constantly lets in time and time again to slaughter the masses because he has no idea how to lead or properly protect anything, and no desire to learn either.

It’s probably a combination of both.

Still, they have to go back sometime, and at least Peter now has future jobs to look forward to and a packmate to spend his time with.  Even just that reminder cheers him up.

“Ready?”  Stiles asks from the doorway, his own bag already slung over one shoulder.

Peter zips up his own and grabs his coat.  “Yes.  Let’s go.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a nerd for interior design/architecture and whenever I write hotel rooms/buildings in my fics, I actually always go and google what I imagine they look like. And sometimes I include them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter uses his downtime to get some studying done. Stiles fields a surprising request from Danny. London is wet. And their next job ends up a little more personal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this count as murder husbands? Did I accidentally low-key start Stiles on the path to sugar-daddyhood? Does this count for Steter Week if it was already Steter Week last year?
> 
>    
>  ~~In other words, Cross has given up on Steter Week because she's written herself into a dead-end and this is all you'll get.~~

 

Part of Peter thinks that something should’ve changed once they’re back in Beacon Hills. He certainly has. Already, he feels stronger with a solid pack bond between himself and Stiles, and his wolf is content to curl up at the back of his mind, satisfied after a successful hunt with its packmate ( _and Alpha and mate_ ).

But Monday dawns without fanfare just as they trundle back into town in a cab that drops them both off in front of Peter’s apartment. Peter’s not so exhausted from jetlag that he can’t appreciate having Stiles in his home. It’s not terribly fancy the way his old loft was from before the fire, all elegant chrome and marble, and the landlord was giving him suspicious looks a week back when Peter only barely made last month’s rent on time with the money Stiles retrieved for him.

(He makes a mental note to only return half of that money to the vault, in case Derek ever needs it. The rest is going into two separate offshore accounts as soon as possible.)

He’s not particularly attached to the place, but it fits his needs, and the cream walls and mahogany flooring that make up his apartment leaves him feeling more relaxed these days.

The two of them trip their way through a shower before falling into bed together. Stiles mumbles something about setting the alarm for school before drifting off almost immediately so Peter obligingly ensures his phone will ring at around seven-thirty.

Then he pulls the blankets over both of them, curls himself around Stiles, and follows him into slumber.

 

* * *

 

Stiles heads home later to drop off his assorted luggage. Peter scents him aggressively before they part, and Stiles only laughs and kisses him goodbye, promising to come back after school.

“With homework,” He adds cryptically, smirking in the face of Peter’s curiosity before disappearing down the stairwell to another waiting cab out front.

Peter watches him go before heading back inside to get ready for the day. As loath as he is to be separated from Stiles, he knows that’s - mostly - the pack bond talking, still settling after only a few weeks since it was first acknowledged by both parties. But the bond itself is strong enough for Peter to ignore the low-key uneasiness prickling under his skin, and the reminder that he’ll be seeing Stiles again in the afternoon helps.

In the meantime, he does have a few of his own matters to attend to. He has his identity back now, and several new ones besides, thanks to Stiles, but he can’t depend on Stiles forever. He needs to be able to pull his own weight and support Stiles in return - that’s the whole point of being partners. Which means - amongst other things - touching base with his old contacts and suppliers, visiting the boltholes he once installed and hid away throughout Beacon County to see which ones can still be used and which will have to be scrapped, and reminding a few people (or ten, or twenty) that even a fire and a coma didn’t mean Peter Hale has forgotten the debts he has yet to collect on.

He’s never been more grateful for his former position as pack enforcer than now. He may not have as infamous a reputation as Echo, but once upon a time, people heard his name and knew to be careful.

He’s not going to be able to finish everything on his laundry list in the next six hours but he may as well get started.

 

* * *

 

Stiles slips back into the monotony of normal high school student life with his usual bored ease. Conversations buzz between students about what they did over spring break and how they wished it was longer. Stiles imagines chatting with Scott about his… extracurricular activities and almost giggles.

Speaking of, the pack - minus the younger ones and Derek - files in, all clumped together. Well, Kira is talking to Malia, Lydia is on her phone, and Scott is trailing after Kira with his usual puppy eyes. Stiles has already checked his cell, and there were no texts or missed calls, so he knows there was no trouble while he and Peter were away.

At least, no trouble that would mean people have been dropping dead again lately. But judging by Scott’s sulky hangdog expression and the way Kira is very pointedly not looking at him, there’s definitely some trouble in paradise. Not to mention…

Stiles leans back in his seat, barely registering the way Malia waves at him and Scott doesn’t. It gives him a good excuse though to angle himself in the werecoyote’s direction and wave back, which consequently allows him almost a direct line of sight to the boy already seated at a desk, notebook open in front of him and retrieving a pen from his bag even as he slants discreet looks at Stiles out of the corner of his eye.

“Morning, Stiles!” Kira chirps with perhaps a little too much cheer as she takes her seat behind him, but the friendliness in her smile is genuine enough so Stiles offers a smile of his own in return.

“Hey, morning, how was your break? How was Disneyland?”

Kira beams even as Malia drops into the seat beside Kira, Lydia slides into the one behind her, still texting (probably Parrish, if Dad’s passing comments about Lydia visiting the station during lunch break more often to “tutor” Parrish in all things supernatural is anything to go by, although they don’t seem to have done anything more than spend time together so far), while Scott huffs and sits down in the one beside Stiles, not even glancing at him before he goes back to staring longingly at the kitsune.

It’s actually kind of creepy. He’s not even looking at her like someone he’s mentally undressing and wants to fuck, which would still be creepy but unfortunately pretty common in hormonal teenagers, and so long as they don’t actually try anything, the tasers and police don’t have to get involved. But no, Scott’s looking at Kira like… like he _owns_ her, and he doesn’t understand why she won’t pay attention to him anymore. Then again, Stiles distinctly remembers Scott looking at Allison the same way even after she officially broke up with him and started dating Isaac. This is the same boy who stalked his first girlfriend everywhere almost the entire time they knew each other. Sure, some of that could’ve been his new werewolf senses, but that should’ve only affected him at the beginning, not to mention that moral compass of his that he’s so proud of should’ve told him that obsessively following _anyone_ around is a big no-no. Stiles _knows_ Melissa wouldn’t have been remiss in teaching her son about that kind of thing either. She may not be law enforcement, but she _is_ a nurse - she would’ve seen her fair share of unhealthy relationships and the many ways they can go wrong.

And if even Stiles - who kills people for a living - finds Scott’s behaviour distasteful, then surely _something’s_ wrong with it.

On the other hand, Stiles’ standards have admittedly never been Scott’s standards. Scott is _good_ enough to become a True Alpha after all, while Stiles wants nothing to do with that title if _Scott_ is what a True Alpha should aspire to. So Stiles’ standards may be skewed.

Not so skewed though that he doesn’t know stalking is wrong, and treating people like possessions is even more wrong. But hell if he’s going to try and mention that to Scott again. The few times he suggested maybe cutting back on following Allison around and staring at her fucking bedroom window all night, all Stiles ever got were variations of “But I love her!”

There’s no damn way he’s going through that again.

He settles more comfortably into his seat instead, listening to Kira with half an ear as she tells him about the trip she took with Malia, thanking him for the fully paid Disneyland vacation he “won” but gave to Malia before he left town for the week, for her and a friend of her choice to enjoy themselves, both because he would be busy and because Malia recently discovered - or maybe rediscovered - Disneyland and had been talking about it for weeks before Spring Break.

It doesn’t really surprise him that she chose Kira to go with her, or that Kira said yes. She’s the first friend Malia made on her own. Stiles doesn’t count.

He gets daggers glared at him from Scott though, and he barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes in response. Is _that_ what this is about? It’s hardly _Stiles’_ fault Kira agreed to go, or even _Kira’s_ fault for agreeing at all. Malia seems to be of the same mind because she spends the next fifteen minutes before the bell rings alternating between glaring at Scott and chiming in with her own excited anecdotes about their time in the theme park.

“Mickey Mouse scared her though,” Kira reveals with barely suppressed laughter.

“It did not!” Malia argues defensively before grumbling, “But a _human-sized_ _mouse_ came up behind us. What was I supposed to do?”

“She punched the poor guy,” Kira translates before finally bursting into giggles, and then squeaking when Malia growls and jabs her gently in the ribs.

“At least she didn’t rip his throat out,” Stiles offers optimistically.

Malia nods proudly. “I remembered not to, cuz there was people! So it was fine!”

Kira sighs but a fond smile tugs at her lips, and they both move on to describing the spacious hotel suite they got to stay in while they were there, and all the complimentary services and gifts that were apparently part of their stay but they didn’t know beforehand so it was a nice surprise.

Stiles nods along and makes a mental note to give everyone at that hotel a bonus.

Well-paid employees are efficient employees, after all.

The bell rings, and they all quiet down as the teacher walks in.

Stiles lets his gaze drift over the boy who’s in the process of giving him one last surreptitious look before facing the front as well.

For someone without any training, Danny Mahealani has always made obliviousness look positively effortless.

So Stiles is looking forward to finding out why that seems to have changed.

 

* * *

 

“Stiles.”

“Danny.”

Stiles glances at Beacon Hills’ favourite lacrosse player before returning his attention to the vending machines. They’re in an out-of-the-way corner of the school with not a whole lot of choices so not very many students loiter around, but it does have Reese’s, and that’s all Stiles cares about.

He straightens once he has his chocolate in hand and finally turns to face Danny, who’s fiddling with the strap of his backpack and looking oddly nervous.

Stiles arches an eyebrow. “Something I can do for you, Danny-boy?”

Danny rolls his eyes practically on reflex, but something in his shoulders loosen a little even if his expression still looks a bit tense. “I need to talk to you.”

“I figured,” Stiles agrees, pointedly looking around at the empty stairwell they’re standing under as he opens his pack of Reese’s. “What’s up?”

Danny grimaces, looks around as if checking for eavesdroppers, and then finally admits in very low tones, “I know about werewolves.”

Stiles bites into a cup. “Mm-hm.”

Danny blinks at him. “You already know. That I know.”

Stiles swallows and shrugs. “Come on, Danny, what goes on in this school that I don’t know about sooner or later?”

Danny glares at that one, though only briefly. Stiles just smirks. They both know that aside from Lydia and Jackson, Stiles is the only other student in Beacon Hills High who knows about Danny’s little side-hobby. And unlike Lydia and Jackson, Stiles has no qualms using it as leverage if he needs to one day. It probably doesn’t help that the only reason those pesky cybercrime charges were dropped and Danny’s record consequently remained squeaky clean was because Stiles asked his dad not to look too closely.

(“Blackmail,” The Sheriff deadpanned with a long-suffering sigh.

“I prefer aggressive persuasion,” A thirteen-year-old Stiles replied, beaming brightly, already plotting to drop a few hints around Danny to make sure the boy knew exactly who got him off the hook. “Besides, right now, it’s just a preemptive countermeasure against a potential professional hacker. Thanks, Dad!”)

At this point, Danny probably mostly trusts him not to actually blab or get his dad to bust him again. Which is stupid of him, but not entirely _wrong_. It isn’t as if Stiles doesn’t know a dozen other hackers he can go to if he needs the help.

Never hurts to have a couple more in his back-pocket though.

“I still talk to Jackson,” Danny says abruptly as if deciding to move on to the actual point he wants to make rather than linger on the elephant that is Stiles potentially hanging his not-so-legal activities over his head.

Unfortunately, as soon as Jackson is mentioned, Stiles loses all interest in the conversation. Danny seems to sense that because he rushes on, “We text at least a couple times a week. We usually Skype on Sundays. But I haven’t heard from him in two weeks, and he didn’t answer my Skype call last Sunday _and_ yesterday.”

“Maybe he forgot,” Stiles offers logically. “Maybe he was busy.”

“But he’d at least tell me that,” Danny insists. “Maybe not before but definitely after. And he missed _yesterday’s_ Skype call. It was my birthday yesterday, Stiles. Jackson wouldn’t miss that. Besides, when he _was_ still answering, he’s been… distracted lately. He said there was nothing wrong when I asked, but I can tell when he’s lying. The last time we Skyped, three weeks ago, he had scratches - from claws - down his face, but he said it was an accident, he got it when he was sparring with a packmate.”

“Maybe he did,” Stiles says. “And yes, I heard, you can tell when he’s lying, so maybe he got it from a packmate but not from a spar. He should have super healing, so if he still had those scratches when he talked to you, they were probably from an Alpha. Maybe his new Alpha was kicking his ass for being a douche.”

Danny scowls. “Jackson gets along fine with his new pack. It was a bit… rough, at first, because yeah, he can be an ass, but he fits in with them now, and I’ve even talked to a few of them. They’re not bad people. Whatever the problem is, it’s not with his pack. I just don’t know what it is. But I _do_ know two weeks of radio silence from him isn’t normal.”

Stiles studies him for a long moment, long enough for even Danny to bristle a little under his regard.

“Okay,” Stiles sighs at last. “Say Jackson is in trouble. Maybe he got kidnapped or his pack got attacked or whatever. Why come to me about it? First of all, he’s all the way in London and hasn’t had anything to do with the supernatural business going down in Beacon Hills since he left. And second of all, it’s not like I particularly care about what happens to him anyway.”

Danny doesn’t even blink at that. The animosity - or rather, Jackson’s one-sided grudge against Stiles - was known to the entire student body. It was practically a part of the high school - and middle school before that - experience: homework, cliques, hated teachers, and Jackson shoving Stiles into a row of lockers every other week while Stiles barely seemed to notice unless Jackson tried to insult his parents or rough up Scott.

(Now Scott sat amongst the jocks, at Danny’s table in fact, while Stiles took his lunch at the table he once shared with Scott or ate outside with Beacon Hills’ newest transfer student, Malia, and Danny sometimes wondered if Scott ever really considered Stiles a friend at all or if he simply clung to the first and only kid who was brave enough to kick Jackson in the balls when he stole Scott’s inhaler.

Then again, who is Danny to throw stones about friends? One of his best friends is an entire continent away and the other barely even looks at him anymore. He’s friendly with everyone, but he was only ever _friends_ with two.)

“But Derek Hale turned him, right?” Danny persists. “So he _was_ part of all this, once. I hacked both his cell and laptop yesterday-” Stiles snorts. “-and I traced them to his room in the boarding school he goes to now. They’re still there today even though he should be in class. I pulled his contacts list too and tried them all. I only got through to a pizza place, some girl with a British accent who didn’t react to any of the werewolf hints I dropped, and his therapist who was out of the office so his secretary answered.” Danny’s lips thin for a moment, and he looks uncharacteristically frustrated. “I even tried tracing the numbers, and most of them went to some house and haven’t moved since either. I can’t exactly call the police to check it out, can I? But even if he moved away, Jackson still has a connection here, and you’re at least part of that group. Can’t you- Can’t you help him?”

Stiles finishes the last of his Reese’s, chewing thoughtfully for several seconds. “...Shouldn’t you be taking this up with Scott? I’m pretty sure you know he’s the Alpha these days.”

Danny gives him one of the flattest, most unimpressed looks Stiles has ever been faced with, and he was trained by his Babcia in a family that doesn’t find a lot of things very impressive anymore.

“I said I want someone to help Jackson,” Danny retorts. “Not get him killed. Probably by accident.”

 _Peter,_ Stiles thinks, suddenly and with more than a little amusement, _would be thrilled to meet Danny._

Out loud though, he remarks, “That’s my best friend you’re talking about, you know.”

Danny just scoffs, and his expression screams, _Seriously?_

Stiles stares for a moment longer before conceding the point with a huff of a laugh. Danny always has been more observant than most people give him credit for.

“Look, I’m not asking for help from _Scott’s pack_ ,” Danny continues with just a touch of desperation in his voice. “Scott doesn’t care about Jackson anyway so why would he help?”

Stiles feels like he needs to make one thing clear, “ _I_ don’t care about Jackson either.”

Danny shrugs. “Yeah, but if I can convince you to help him, you actually will. If I convince McCall to help him, he wouldn’t have the first clue how, and he’d probably forget about it as soon as his girlfriend starts talking to him again. Or honestly even before that.”

Stiles snorts again. Oh yeah, Peter would be delighted to meet Danny.

“What about Lydia?” He asks abruptly. “Shouldn’t she be your first choice?”

Danny’s expression shutters. “...Jackson burnt all his bridges with her when he left without even telling her. He’s told me she saved his life. And she even tried calling him a few times after he left but he didn’t answer. He said he didn’t know what to say, but by the time he was ready to call back… well, it was too late. Lydia doesn’t take that sort of thing lying down. Not even from Jackson.”

(And somehow, Danny - by association or maybe because he wasn’t dropped headfirst into the whole mess in the first place - was also… forgotten. They still talk, if they’re paired up for projects or classwork, but they haven’t hung out together since sophomore year.)

Stiles hums as he digests that. So it seems Lydia really is more like the girl he thought she was. It’s Scott who’s just… contagious.

Good to know.

“So?” Danny demands, one hand gone white-knuckled around the strap of bag. “Are you going to help or not?”

Stiles balls up the plastic wrapping and tosses it towards the far corner. It sails across the stairwell space and drops neatly into the garbage can.

Then he looks at Danny and smiles. “Well, why not? I don’t have anything else to do at the moment, and an entire pack potentially gone missing could be interesting to do some digging into. But Danny-boy,” Stiles adds before Danny can do more than open his mouth. “This isn’t like me pretending not to know about your penchant for breaking the law every time you touch a piece of tech. If I look into this, you’re going to owe me. And it might be tomorrow or it might be in ten years, but eventually, you’re gonna have to repay the favour.”

Danny is silent for a moment, and then he breathes out in a whoosh that sounds a lot like relief. “Deal,” He says firmly, and even holds out a hand.

Stiles shakes it, amused. “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you about deals and devils?”

Danny shrugs, and already, he looks a little calmer. Still worried but not quite as visibly upset. It makes Stiles wonder - what _does_ Danny think of him? Here he thought he mostly just annoyed the budding hacker.

“Jackson’s an asshole but he’s also my friend,” Danny says simply, as if that’s the only thing that matters.

Stiles can respect that, even if he thinks Jackson doesn’t deserve it.

“I need all the information you already have. Even that phone number to the pizza place.”

A USB is promptly thrust at him.

Stiles smirks as he accepts it. “I’ll keep you updated.”

“Appreciated.”

 

* * *

 

Peter looks up from where he’s sitting on the couch as his apartment door opens and Stiles breezes in, backpack still slung over one shoulder.

“Hey Peter!”

A moment later, he gets a lapful of assassin, and suddenly being surrounded by Stiles’ scent makes him greedy, his own arms coming around to hug Stiles to him as he buries his nose in the boy’s neck.

Stiles just snickers a little and leans against him until Peter finally relaxes and pulls back far enough to peer up at Stiles’ face. “Did you have a good day at school?”

Stiles shrugs. “Could’ve been worse. I even got a job for us. Maybe. I still have to check. But how was your day?”

Peter smirks. “Productive. I did some spring cleaning and reminded a few people that their worst nightmare is still around and kicking. You can imagine they weren’t best pleased.”

Stiles cocks his head. “Will it be a problem?”

Peter scoffs. “Not if I have anything to say about it. Don’t worry, Stiles. I can keep my debtors in line. But enough about them,” He looks curiously at Stiles. “How in the world did you get us a job at school?”

Stiles grins. “D’you remember Jackson Whittemore?”

Peter blinks, trying to place the name. “...The kanima?”

Stiles smirks. “That’s the one. Not so much a mindless lizard anymore though, as you know. He moved to London with his family, and he even managed to find a pack to join. Apparently, he still keeps in touch with Danny, but Danny told me today that Jackson hasn’t texted or called in two weeks. He thinks something’s wrong, and he wants me to look into it.”

Peter frowns. “How do we know he isn’t just busy?”

“Danny said Jackson would at least tell him. He also hacked his cell and laptop, both of which haven’t left his dorm room since at least yesterday, and he can’t reach Jackson’s packmates either. So he wants me to look into it because I know about the werewolf stuff.”

Peter considers this for a moment. “Since he knows that much already, why didn’t he ask Scott?”

Stiles snorts. “He’s afraid Scott will botch it as soon as Kira bats her eyelashes at him.”

Peter stares, and then he has to put actual effort into suppressing the undignified cackle threatening to burst out of his throat. Stiles seems to sense it anyway because he grins. “Thought you’d like that. Anyway, since I don’t have any other jobs lined up for us at the moment, I thought this was interesting enough to take a look into.”

“Hmm,” Peter smirks knowingly. “And it doesn’t hurt to have a hacker owe you a favour, right? And maybe even a whole pack?”

Stiles beams. “Right! So anyway, I’ll look into that, and normally, we’d split the legwork between us again like last time, but-” He whisks out two innocuous-looking USBs. “-I’m afraid you have homework.”

Peter’s wolf grumbles a little when Stiles clambers to his feet but Peter has a feeling this is serious so he shoves that instinct aside and concentrates on what Stiles is saying as the boy hands the flash drives over.

“These have to be destroyed once you’ve memorized everything on them,” Stiles tells him solemnly. “They include everything from bank account numbers to the locations of safehouses all around the world to various contact info you might need one day. You’re my partner now, and practically family, which means you get all our resources too. It’s a lot of stuff to learn - I grew up with it and even I think so - but it’ll help you in the long run, and the sooner you memorize everything, the better.”

Peter stares down at the flash drives for a moment longer before reaching for one of Stiles’ hands and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Stiles makes a funny snorting noise, his scent going warm and sweet with equal parts surprise and affection and embarrassment.

“Can’t you thank me like a normal person?” Stiles huffs even as a smile twitches at his lips.

Peter grins, flashing a hint of fang. “I would never do either of us the disservice of being _normal_ , sweetheart.”

Stiles laughs at that before turning away to reach into his bag for his laptop and then handing it over. “Use this. I’ll be in your bedroom - I need to make a few calls.”

Peter nods, gaze lingering on Stiles’ ass in those jeans as the boy gets up and ducks out of the room, and then he focuses on booting up the laptop and picking one of the memory sticks to start with.

He pauses when the screen asks for a password.

It only takes him two attempts. He excluded the period on the first try.

_You must be Stiles._

He smiles as the Start menu appears. And then he gets to work.

 

* * *

 

A few nights later, Stiles is finishing up his third can of iced coffee at two in the morning as he frowns his way through the attendance records of Jackson’s boarding school. He’s gone through all the information Danny gave him, which actually didn’t give him much more information than what Danny already told him, so now he’s pursuing a different line of investigation.

It’s odd. Jackson’s been marked absent in all of his classes since the Tuesday before Spring Break. And yet there’s been no calls made to the parents - Mr. Whittemore is still away on a business trip and Mrs. Whittemore is taking an extended vacation in Paris with her sister, sun-tanning by the pool and all - or even the cops.  No APBs have been put out. And no friends - or at least fellow classmates - or teachers appear to be particularly concerned, if the recordings that one of Stiles’ contacts emailed him yesterday are anything to go by.

For all intents and purposes, Jackson Whittemore isn’t missing. Just… not in school at the moment, as if someone signed him out for an extended holiday of his own.

Stiles leans back in his chair and sighs. Helix is still working on digging through the past week and a half of recordings from the cameras built in and around the boarding school. There aren’t that many-- privacy is - unfortunately, in this case - a line most people have to toe, so mostly the cameras record the comings and goings of students and teachers in more public areas and the entrances of the school.

Personally, Stiles doubts he’s actually going to find the kidnapper on tape, if Jackson really has been abducted. It seems like a needless hassle for someone to risk walking into the school just to smuggle a student out again when they can simply nab them during the three hours each day that the older students are allowed off school grounds to the nearby shopping mall ten minutes away. But considering there’s been no police involvement at all, if a kidnapping has gone down, then the kidnapper obviously knew what he was doing, and trying to find a video recording of it in the bustle of a _mall_ would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. And that’s assuming the kidnapper didn’t somehow lure Jackson into a camera blind spot to begin with.

But the school. The school isn’t worried. So either Jackson’s away at a game or something with his rugby team, and Stiles simply can’t find an electronic copy of the itinerary and permission slips for the trip, or the kidnapper’s done such a good job that they’ve somehow made the school believe Jackson has legitimate reason to not be attending his classes for a couple of weeks. But if they could do that, why not just pull him out completely? There’s been no ransom notes sent to the Whittemore parents so they’re probably not looking to trade him for money, and if they don’t want to trade him, then they’re probably not going to let him go with a pat on the head after they get whatever it is they want.

Or maybe they just don’t care. They don’t want heat on them right away, but maybe they’re confident about getting away with the kidnapping and possible murder so long as they have a bit of time to accomplish their goals. Which… probably implies they’ve done this before. And that - coupled with the fact that they actually managed to get the drop on a werewolf, possibly were _wolves_ \- probably implies that hunters are involved, which is just fantastic.

And then there’s the Seymour Pack. Small, six werewolves including Jackson, and three humans. Danny was right about that too - nobody picked up when Stiles called but all their cells were traced back to a house on the fringes of the countryside, half an hour outside of London where Jackson’s boarding school is. Stiles even ordered a pizza and gave them the house’s address. He got a call back forty-five minutes later asking if he gave the right address because nobody was answering the door, and all the windows were dark.

Stiles sighs again. He’s getting ahead of himself. There could be a perfectly good reason for all of this, and he’s just blowing it completely out of proportion. But this is why he prefers doing his legwork in person. Trying to figure out what happened an ocean away just isn’t the same as - say - breaking into the school and shaking a few people down to find out what’s going on. It’s all fine and dandy if he has the majority of the information ready and available for him to look through, but when he’s missing three-quarters of the puzzle pieces with no clue who he has to kill or even _if_ he needs to kill someone, all this long-distance research is just an exercise in frustration.

He takes a last draught of his coffee before glancing around the apartment. Peter is still up as well, mouthing along to whichever file he’s currently studying on the laptop, his hair isn’t perfectly styled anymore, sticking up here and there from when he ran a hand through it more than once, and he’s tucked his legs up onto the couch.

It makes Stiles smile and want to drag Peter off to bed for a cuddle and some sleep as well.

Sleep would certainly be more enjoyable than wading through boring recordings of high school life for _Jackson Whittemore_ of all people.

He sighs a third time and then moves to power down his laptop. Enough is enough.

Peter’s already looking over when Stiles spins around in the chair to face him, one eyebrow arched. “Finished for today?”

Stiles scrubs a hand over his face. “Finished, period, unless Helix comes through with something new. You up for another trip this weekend?”

Peter immediately brightens, and something in Stiles preens at the reaction. Sometimes, a lot of the time if he’s honest, when he was growing up, he didn’t actually think he’d ever find a partner who would take to this life so enthusiastically, no matter what Babcia said.

“We’re going to London then?” Peter asks, although it isn’t much of a question. “I’ll need to buy an umbrella.”

Stiles snickers. “It doesn’t rain _all_ the time over there. But yeah, to look around a bit, if nothing else. Visit the house most of his pack seems to be living in. Or, _did_ live in. They don’t seem to be home at the moment.” He nods at the laptop Peter’s perched on one knee. “You can even bring your homework along.”

Peter rolls his eyes and begins closing the files as well. “And what about _your_ homework? Don’t you already have a paper due next week?”

Stiles waves a dismissive hand. “Not until Thursday, and it’s a short one. I could start on Wednesday and still get it done.” He makes grabby hands in Peter’s direction. “Now carry me to bed! I’m tired.”

Peter rolls his eyes again but obligingly comes over to scoop Stiles up into his arms. Then of course, Stiles catches a glimpse of an evil smirk before he’s unceremoniously slung over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Peter!” He squawks. “I am a princess! I demand to be carried like on- _oof!_ ”

He’s tossed onto the bed, bouncing a little from the impact, but that doesn’t stop him from grabbing the nearest pillow and hurling it at Peter’s laughing mien. It hits him full in the face, shutting him up with a satisfying _wumph_ , and this time, it’s Stiles’ turn to cackle at the rumpled look on Peter’s face.

Peter’s eyes narrow. And then he pounces.

They both end up with silly grins on their faces at two-thirty in the morning, wrestling each other for the pillows and then almost taking the nightstand with them when they inevitably topple off the bed and onto the floor.

 

* * *

 

They take an afternoon flight to London on Friday, as soon as Stiles gets out of school. The Sheriff doesn’t have a shift at the time so he even drives them to San Francisco.

“Take care of each other,” He tells them before he pulls away from the curb, and Stiles remembers Babcia saying the same thing to John and Claudia once upon a time, when Stiles was still very young and Claudia was still healthy enough to go out on jobs. But it leaves Peter a little wide-eyed and more than a little confused, although he doesn’t ask so Stiles doesn’t explain. He’ll get it on his own one day.

Peter takes the window seat and puts in earphones, closing his eyes and listening to the information they have so far on Jackson’s situation that Stiles converted to audio for him. Likewise, Stiles reads up on all the information Peter put together on the Seymour Pack for him. The Hales never interacted with werewolves overseas but that didn’t mean they didn’t at least know about them, or had contacts who knew and could keep them updated when they asked.

They land in London on Saturday. London is eight hours ahead so it’s almost eleven in the morning by the time they fetch their luggage and exit the airport.

Of course, before they head out, Peter daintily pulls out the umbrella he insisted on packing, a smug smirk on his lips as Stiles flips him the middle finger and then runs off to go buy an umbrella for himself because it looks like God is pouring bathtubs’ worth of water from the heavens outside.

“What, no hotels in London?” Peter enquires as they check in to a Best Western.

“Not in London,” Stiles confirms. “Besides, we’re not here as Echo. If something goes down, and we actually end up having to go save Jackson’s useless ass, he’ll probably see us, and you know our rule. So even if we did have a hotel here, I don’t wanna risk anyone seeing us living it up in the penthouse suite.”

Peter nods his agreement, although he does end up insisting on a master suite, which makes Stiles snort. At least Peter also remembers to get one high up that overlooks the Thames instead of facing another building.

They don’t do anything else other than grab a shower before falling into bed. Neither of them slept on the plane so they’re about dead on their feet. They can start their investigation once they’ve gotten some proper shut-eye.

 

* * *

 

It’s still raining cats and dogs when they wake up shortly before six. They call room service for a quick meal, and then they get down to business.

“I figured we could check out the Seymour Pack’s place first,” Stiles says as he pulls up a map on his laptop. “If no one’s home, maybe someone left something behind that would help us find them.”

“Could be a trap,” Peter points out as he sits down beside Stiles, cracking open a bottle of water as he does. “Not many regular humans without knowledge of the supernatural could get the drop on a werewolf, much less a pack of them. So it’s probably hunters, and if it’s hunters, their usual modus operandi is bait or kill. If they just killed the werewolves, there’d be no need to make excuses for Jackson, so most likely bait. And if they’re trying to lure more werewolves in, the pack house is a good place to set the trap.”

Stiles hums his agreement. “We’ll just have to be careful then since we can’t not go; we’ve got no other leads. We could always check out the school but I doubt we’ll find much there. Better to-”

He’s cut off by the buzz of his cell, and when he checks, a text blinks back up at him.

_: Can I bring kira to the flat? :_

Stiles’ eyebrows go up but he quickly texts back, _: u mean u havent already? :_

_: Thanks =) :_

Stiles smiles briefly before putting his phone on silent. When he looks up again, Peter is watching him with a strange expression on his face. “What?”

Peter blinks once, slowly. “I’m assuming ‘Wiley’ is Malia?”

Stiles shrugs. “Yup.”

Peter’s jaw works for a moment. “...Flat?”

Stiles turns back to his laptop to check the weather. “Uh, yeah. Her… dad, wasn’t really comfortable with-” He makes claw gestures. “-and he’s seeing someone who has a kid already, a little girl. Malia didn’t want to stay with him while he’s playing happy families, so I bought her an apartment to live in.”

Still raining, obviously, and not looking to let up anytime soon. He hates trekking through mud but this is actually good - shitty weather conditions will hide their tracks even better.

He glances at Peter again, who looks like he wants to say something else but only nods and turns back to the laptop in the end. Stiles follows suit after a moment. This is probably something they’re going to have to talk about soon, but not now.

They take another fifteen minutes to go over the roads and tree cover that the satellites can pick up, and then they pack up and head out. Peter stares mournfully at the drab outdoors, which makes Stiles snigger, but he only shoots Stiles a dirty look before pulling up the hood and collar of the dark tight-fitting coat Stiles gave him, leaving just the upper part of his face uncovered. Stiles does the same, and then they set off at an easy jog in the direction of the Seymour pack house.

 

* * *

 

The house isn’t actually just a mere house, but even satellite images didn’t reveal the sheer size of the manor estate. In the dark, with no lights on, it looks downright haunted. Stiles clocks a total of eight cameras and an electric fence along the walls, and one look through his binoculars tells him that they are way too new and just way too _hunter_ for them to have always been there unless the Seymour Pack decided to do some redecorating recently. Then there are the smudges of mountain ash that haven’t been washed away by the rain quite yet, which light up in the grass outside the walls in bright red through the lenses.

“Great, it’s a trap,” Stiles groans as he passes the binoculars to Peter, who’s just returning from scouting out the back of the estate.

“Did you actually think there was much of a chance that it wasn’t?” Peter asks as he scans the front gates.

“I was holding out hope that they went on vacation in the Bahamas or something,” Stiles grumbles. “Now we have to actually save them. I don’t even _like_ Jackson, and this will be the second time I help save him. That’s just wrong.”

Peter pats him on the head and then snatches his hand back just in time to avoid the knife Stiles tries to stab him with. The bastard has the gall to laugh at him as he passes the binoculars back.

Stiles heaves a sigh and stows his knife away again. “Whatever. What’d you pick up on your run?”

Peter shakes his head, also adopting a more serious countenance. “There’s a part of the fence around the back where the electricity feels a lot weaker. I think the rain short-circuited a bit of the wiring. No heartbeats inside but there could be talismans involved. I got close enough to smell blood though. And decay. There are bodies in there, I’m sure of it.”

Stiles grimaces. “Okay, I’ll go in first. I can see like three blind spots just from here; it won’t be hard. I’d still be more comfortable if we had more time to stake this place out or at least had a copy of the blueprints but even Helix hasn’t been able to dig that up. So improvisation it is. You come in around the back. I’ll scope the place out for any wolfsbane traps and let you in through the back door if all goes well.”

Peter looks faintly apprehensive but he nods anyway, and Stiles appreciates the faith he has in Stiles’ skills. He’s lost count of the number of times Derek and Scott dismissed him no matter how many times he used to help them out.

They stash their duffel bags under a nearby bush, and they blend in well enough that anybody who doesn’t know something’s there would miss them.

“See you in a bit,” Stiles says, adjusting his hood before scaling one of the nearby trees before taking a running leap off one of the thicker branches and vaulting clean over the electric fence.

He lands and rolls on soft wet grass, and the estate’s front lawn is enough of a forest for Stiles to remain largely hidden as he makes his way up to the house.

It’s not hard breaking in. Even winging it, Stiles has run harder obstacle courses for Babcia when he was still in training. There are makeshift alarms on the inside of several entrances, although the kidnapper(s) did make an effort to hide them from anyone looking in from the outside.

No big deal. Stiles climbs to the roof. Yeah, not even a tripwire.

He swings down. Apparently, nobody thought to watch the chimney access.

The inside of the house is silent save for the buzz of flies, and even Stiles can smell the blood now. He finds the pieces of a decayed corpse, still partially wolfed out, cut in half in the foyer, and another body - also cut in half - in the kitchen.

Not just hunters but professionals too. Probably from one of the big families.

This day just gets better and better.

There are no cameras or even listening devices. He gets close enough to one of the alarms to recognize that they would send a heads-up to whoever set them up if they were triggered but nothing else. If Stiles could trace that signal though…

For now, he moves on. He searches the house, which takes a while, but there doesn’t seem to be any surprise wolfsbane traps so he heads out back to let Peter in. The alarms are portable so it’s a simple enough matter to shift the one in front of the backdoors and set it delicately to the side without tripping the sensor. He reaches for the door handle and then pauses.

Ah, there’s the wolfsbane. He taps a finger against the polished metal layered with the stuff and raises an eyebrow when his glove comes back slightly singed.

Seems like this is a _really_ special strain. Sadistic fucks.

He goes back to the kitchen to grab a hand towel. Mere moments later, he has the doors open and is waving Peter in.

“I haven’t checked the bodies yet,” Stiles says as Peter slips inside, eyes glowing that otherworldly blue as he rakes a sharp eye over Stiles as if checking for injury before immediately taking in his surroundings as well.

Stiles leads them to the body in the foyer. This one looks like it took the brunt of a violent spray of bullets. It certainly wasn’t a painless death, and there’s more dried blood than skin showing.

Peter crouches down and pats the corpse down. “No phone.” Claws peak out from the tips of his gloves as he digs into the rotting chest wound and plucks out a bullet. “Wolfsbane. No surprise there. They-”

He cuts himself off and goes still. Stiles is at his side in an instant. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Peter says nothing. Instead, he scrapes off a bit more of the blood and viscera before angling the bullet in Stiles’ direction.

Stiles arches an eyebrow. “...Huh.”

A fleur-de-lis stares back at him, stamped neatly on the bullet, bold and taunting and very familiar.

 

* * *

 

“So it’s Argents,” Stiles says once they’ve checked the other corpse and found identically stamped bullets in it. “Christ, they’re like cockroaches, aren’t they? It can’t be Kate, and I took care of Gerard. Victoria’s long dead, Allison is… well, dead too, and Chris had that midlife crisis of his so it’s probably not him. Who the fuck is left?”

Peter growls, pacing the length of the kitchen. “The Argents are based in France. Gerard’s line was just the main branch. After Allison died, the leadership would’ve passed on to someone else, and that whole family would’ve continued doing what they do best.”

“Ruin lives?” Stiles offers dryly.

Peter snorts his agreement and tosses the bullets back onto the body. Some of them roll off and hit the floor with innocently chime-like clinks. “What do we do now?”

Stiles stoops over to pick one of the bullets back up, studying the fleur-de-lis. “This was the clue. The bait.” He glances around. “There aren’t any cameras in here. Outside, yeah, but not in here. What if the ones on the wall miss someone? You’d think even overconfident hunters would like to know the faces they’re planning to hunt down and kill.” His mind races, leaping from thought to thought and weaving them together to form the picture he’s been trying to put together since Danny brought this problem to him. “I think… I think they already knew who would be coming to investigate so they didn’t have to be as meticulous with setting up a bunch of cameras inside if the ones outside were bypassed. And the hunters knew that whoever they’re waiting for would recognize the fleur-de-lis and associate it with the Argents _and_ would then be invested enough to track the Argents down.”

He pauses, staring off into the distance as he changes tracks a little. “The Seymour Pack is peaceful. They’ve never caused any particular problems that would endanger humans. They’re secluded. Strong enough to hold their territory but not interested in making that many allies. Even if they were taken, they don’t keep up with any packs to the point where they would come running just because the Seymours don’t pick up the phone for a couple days. But _Jackson_. Jackson used to live in a town that’s been making pretty big waves in the supernatural community. Jackson who regularly texts and Skypes a boy who knows about werewolves even if he’s not involved. A boy who goes to the same school as the resident True Alpha.”

He meets Peter’s eyes, and something in him thrills when he sees the understanding that matches his own burn bright in that gaze.

“People know about the True Alpha,” Peter acknowledges. His lip curls with derision. “With how many of his enemies he lets go, people know his name. True Alphas _are_ supposed to be rare, so that drew some interest. And there are people who even call him a hero because most of the main Argent line died in Beacon Hills, and all their deaths are connected one way or another to Scott McCall. The stories of him out there frankly read like fairy tales half the time.” He looks at the bullet in Stiles’ hand, and then back to Stiles. “They did their homework, not to mention Gerard probably sent back at least some information on anybody with a foot in the supernatural world in that town. These Argents though, they won’t make the same mistake and confront Scott on his hometurf. If nothing else, Beacon Hills has proven a pretty unfortunate place to be for an Argent. So they grabbed Jackson instead. Grabbed most of his pack too because it would be harder to take one pack member and keep it a secret from the rest. But for everyone else, they make up some excuse so that nobody is alerted when Jackson stops going to school. Nobody except the best friend in Beacon Hills, who would be suspicious when Jackson suddenly drops off the face of the planet. The best friend who knows just enough about werewolves to realize he can’t call the authorities on the off-chance that this is supernatural-related. So at that point, logically speaking, there’s only one person he _could_ go to about it. The same person who had at least an indirect hand in the destruction of the main branch of the family. And if they’re lucky, when Scotty boy rushes over like the white knight he somehow seems to make everybody think he is, he might even bring the rest of his pack with him, right into the Argents’ trap.” Peter huffs a laugh that’s more mocking than amused. “This is _revenge_. How cute.”

Stiles makes a face and tosses the bullet onto the ground. “Awesome. So we know what they want. One thing I don’t get though,” He gestures at the house around them. “Why not just set the trap up here? Scott would totally bust in and get himself killed in like ten seconds. So why leave a clue and make Scott track them down? Cuz honestly, I don’t think he’d know how.”

Peter smirks meanly but shakes his head. “I don’t know. This place is remote. Nobody around for miles. It’s the perfect place for a spot of murder.” He looks at the corpse. “Obviously. Although that begs the question of why they didn’t just kill the whole pack except Jackson and be done with it. Maybe they wanted to give extra incentive to Scott to go after them? But again-”

“-they could just kill them all here,” Stiles finishes, nodding in agreement. “There’s no point nabbing Jackson and most of his pack and taking them somewhere else just to wait for Scott to find them. He’s more likely to bumble around London for days looking for them. If he came at all.”

The next few seconds pass in pensive silence. Stiles pulls out his phone and snaps a couple pictures of each of the corpses. Peter looks around again with a frown. “Are you sure you checked the entire manor?”

Stiles shrugs. “Enough to tell where the alarms are and that there are no hunters around anymore. Why?”

Peter doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he looks around again, then turns and lopes back through the house and out the back doors again. Stiles follows, and they make their way down to the sprawling grove of trees that surrounds the house. It’s still raining but once they step under the cover of the branches, only a light drizzle still gets through.

“I thought I smelled wolfsbane when I came through from the back,” Peter tells him quietly as they pick their way over roots and grass and soil. “And smoke. I was surprised you only found intact - relatively intact - bodies. So… yes, here. I thought so.”

He stops and steps aside, and up close, Stiles can smell it too - the lingering scent of smoke and ash and…

Silently, he pulls out a tiny flashlight and points it at the ground.

They’re in a small clearing. The earth has been recently overturned. And the trees have provided the area with enough cover to protect it from the elements.

A shallow mass grave stares back at him. Bits of wood are mixed in with the dirt. And body parts - a finger here, part of a foot there, half a skull over there - are half-buried in the mess, as if the hunters didn’t have the patience to stick around long enough to ensure everything was reduced to ash.

They certainly didn’t care enough either.

Stiles wonders if the Seymour Pack was still alive when they burned.

Peter doesn’t say a word as he turns on his heel and heads back to the house. Stiles remains for a few seconds longer, listening to the howl of wind through the trees, and then he too turns and takes his leave.

“It _was_ meant as incentive,” Peter says as soon as Stiles reappears in the kitchen. “Leave only two bodies here - Scott would’ve assumed that the others had been kidnapped but were still alive, so he’d rush off to try and convince the hunters to let them go. He does like playing the hero. But they didn’t set the trap here and wait for Scott to come barging in. _He_ probably wouldn’t have noticed the trap, but someone else might have.”

“Argent,” Stiles finishes, and Peter is already nodding.

“I’m not sure why they thought Scott might bring Christopher along,” The werewolf continues. “But they could’ve thought it was a slim possibility, and they would’ve known that Christopher would sniff out a hunter’s trap - and especially an _Argent’s_ trap - from a mile away. That’s why they only bothered to set up cameras outside. Still a trap, but only surveillance. If they didn’t catch anyone on tape, they’d just assume Chris was with them. And… how did you get in?”

“Through the chimney,” Stiles tilts his head thoughtfully. “Chris wouldn’t have fit.”

Peter nods again. “And I doubt Scott or the other children would’ve been able to climb onto the roof as successfully as you did. They would’ve had to trigger an alarm, and it would alert the hunters. So they planted bait here, they planted incentive here, and they must be waiting elsewhere to ambush Scott, somewhere where they would have the upper hand despite Scott possibly having Christopher with him, probably property owned by Argents.” He pauses. ”Christopher would probably be considered a traitor amongst the rest of his family at this point, working with werewolves the way he has. Scott insists on rushing in, drags the rest of his little friends and even Christopher with him, and the Argents would be able to wipe them all out in one go.” The stretch of his smirk reveals his fangs. “It’s a very well put-together plan. Not bad at all for hunter scum. Certainly more sophisticated than anything Scott or Derek could’ve come up with.”

Stiles snorts. “That’s not hard.” He toes at one of the bullets. “Right, well. We’ve got everything we need. Now we just need to track Jackson and those hunters down. Fortunately, _we_ don’t need Argent to tell us where his family properties are.”

Peter nods curtly, already moving towards the back doors again. “I’ll go fetch the bags.”

Stiles crouches down as he waits. After a moment, he reaches out and closes the werewolf’s eyes. He gets up and does the same for the other one. Then, after another minute of consideration, he sighs and begins arranging each of the two pieces of the corpses into something more intact-body-shaped.

He doesn’t like Jackson, doesn’t really care about him either if he’s honest. But even Jackson doesn’t deserve to come back home just to see his dead packmates strewn about like trash.

 

* * *

 

“We’re going to kill them all, right?” Peter asks when they’re heading back to the hotel under the chilly dark of a rainy night. There’s something extra cold in the spark of his eyes. “These are the kinds of people we go after. So we’re going to kill them?”

Stiles thinks of the clearing with the mass grave and the wooden floorboards stained dark with blood, and his answering smirk is vicious. “Of course we are. We may not be here on official Echo business, but we are still _Echo_.”

 

* * *

 

They have the location - a seemingly abandoned warehouse south of London in the middle of nowhere - but they return to their hotel room first.

It’s almost midnight by the time Stiles steps out of the bathroom, scrubbing a towel through his hair, pleasantly surprised to find a very late dinner waiting for him on the glass table between the sofa and the TV.

Peter’s just finished setting out the cutlery, and he quirks a smile when Stiles bounces over to curl up on the couch with him. They wolf down their respective meals, classical music playing quietly in the background, and they’re down to their last bites when Stiles’ phone buzzes.

Stiles sighs and reaches for it, only to realize it’s his work phone requesting his attention, which makes him sit up as he scrambles for it. Peter also looks over, eyes alert.

It’s a text from Helix:

_: got 2 things for u :_

Stiles hastily types back, confirming, _: ee2786 go :_

Another text comes through promptly, except this time, it’s an image, slightly blurry, and the angle’s not great, taken from what seems to be a traffic cam as it snapped a shot of a car running a red light outside of a cafe that the two people - circled in black by Helix - are sitting in.

His phone buzzes.

_: think u know 1 of them :_

_: the other is helaine argent, current matriarch of the argent family :_

_: they met approx 5 mths ago in London :_

“They look like they’re arguing,” Peter murmurs, studying the image closely.

Stiles nods. The woman’s expression is cold stone but her eyes practically spit fire even through the photo. And while Chris Argent isn’t exactly prone to fits of emotion, Stiles knows that baring of gritted teeth anywhere.

 _: wats the other thing :_ Stiles types.

_: i couldnt find yr boy on any cameras going back the past 3 wks, kidnapper knew wat they were doing :_

Stiles grins a bit when he catches Peter’s face twisting like he’s tasted something sour.

_: so i started looking into that therapist, parents signed their son up with the guy to help him through his insecurities + some trauma he went thru in BH :_

_: i almost didnt pursue him either, dudes boring, 9-5, decent patients list, lives alone, but i had nothing else so i dug deeper :_

_: argents are thorough, ill give them that :_

Another photo comes through, this time a snapshot of the trial records of one Lucas Kyle, ten years ago, accused of selling antidepressants and other medication on the side, but the evidence that would’ve convicted him went missing, and nothing came of it.

_: his lawyer was on argent payroll :_

_: and since then they own his ass :_

_: the folks left explicit instructions for the school that yr boys mental health comes first :_

_: our friend mr kyle had authority to pull him out of school w/o notifying the parents if he thought it necessary :_

_: easy enough to make someone disappear w/o starting a manhunt dont u think? :_

Stiles lowers his phone. He shares a glance with Peter, who scoffs and goes back to his food.

Stiles looks down again and texts, _: last piece i was missing thx. Ill send payment along monday morning :_

_: always a pleasure E :_

Stiles sets his phone aside and obediently opens his mouth when Peter forks the last of his fish and feeds it to him.

“You know,” Stiles muses out loud as he leans into Peter’s side again. “Jackson could already be dead too. It’s not like the hunters _need_ to keep even one of them alive if they think Scott would fly to the rescue anyway.”

“He could,” Peter agrees. “But… pack bonds are hardy things. Jackson is no longer Derek’s beta, and Derek’s not even an alpha anymore, but he’s still the one who turned him, and there’s not much that can break a connection like that. There won’t be any urge to obey anymore, nothing that would let one influence the other, but their wolves would still recognize each other and remember what they once were and could’ve been, and it’s a recognition that’s felt on a more… soul-deep level, you could say. If Jackson was killed, Derek would know, even if only vaguely. Most hunters think werewolves are little more than rabid beasts but the smart ones do at least subscribe to the maxim of ‘know thy enemy’. They wouldn’t want to risk Scott and his pack not coming at all if they killed Jackson too early and Derek felt it and warned them.”

Stiles snorts at that one. “As if Scott would take him at face-value anyway. You know how he is when it comes to anything werewolf.”

Peter shrugs and settles deeper into the couch before sliding an arm around Stiles to pull him closer. “ _We_ know. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing Scott is good at, it’s somehow blinding most of the world to his laundry list of faults. It would almost be impressive if the worst thing of all isn’t the fact that the blindest person is _himself_.”

Stiles makes a face and very deliberately decides not to think about it. Scott in general gives him migraines these days if he thinks about him for more than a few minutes.

Instead, he nuzzles into Peter’s shoulder and sighs. “We’ll go get them in the morning. I need to make a phone call first anyway. Might as well get a few more hours of sleep before we have to deal with hunters and a traumatized werewolf tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”

“Sounds good,” Peter presses a kiss to his temple before getting to his feet to begin stacking the empty plates back onto the cart. “I’ll roll this back out into the hall.”

Stiles nods, grabs his phone, and calls for delivery.

 

* * *

 

Peter wakes three hours later to an empty bed and voices at the door. The sun isn’t even up yet, and already the day is promising to be another wet one. He’s beginning to learn that his new job is an any-time-of-day-or-night kind of business, with bouts of sleep whenever they can get it.

Then again, it isn’t as if his old job as pack enforcer was very different in that aspect. Targets don’t move around on your schedule, unfortunately.

He yawns, stretches, and then wanders out into the living area where Stiles is just closing the door, a viola case in hand.

He arches an eyebrow upon seeing the unassembled pieces of a sniper rifle when Stiles opens the case and runs a loving hand over the weapon. “Was that what your call was about? Did you get that FedEx’d here?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Don’t be silly, Peter. FedEx is too slow. Just because my family doesn’t own any hotels in London doesn’t mean we don’t have a couple warehouses in Cambridge and a dozen different couriers to take my pick from when I call to kick one of them out of bed to make the delivery.”

Peter snorts and heads for the bathroom. “Of course, my mistake. We leaving soon?”

He hears the case snaps shut again. “In half an hour. We’re taking the bus halfway. So coif that hair and put your gorgeous face on fast-”

Peter feels entirely justified in sending the bottle of shampoo whizzing through the air at Stiles’ head. He hears it thump into Stiles’ hand, and the laughter that follows is unrepentant. He huffs even as he reaches for his toothbrush. “Excuse you, I am always gorgeous.”

“Of course, darling,” Stiles calls back obligingly. And then he cackles. “Not even any white hairs yet.”

Peter rolls his eyes at his reflection and starts getting ready for the day.

 

* * *

 

On a scale of one to ten, easiest to hardest jobs he’s ever gone on, this ranks about a negative fifteen. The universe was even generous enough to give him a handy cliff with some thick shrubbery to set up under, directly across from the warehouse, and down below, three yawning hunters sit around in front of it looking half-asleep, clearly not at all concerned about anyone ambushing them out here, probably because their little alarms still haven’t been tripped.

How these idiots managed to get the drop on the Seymour Pack is beyond Stiles. Maybe they’re better when they’re prepared, but they’re supposed to be in the middle of a hunt, even if they’ve been playing the waiting game for a while now - they should _already be prepared_.

Ah well. All the better for Stiles and Peter, although Stiles makes a mental note to pull a harder job after this one. He doesn’t want Peter getting bored.

He finishes assembling his rifle. Then he lies down, makes himself comfortable, and readies the first shot.

 

* * *

 

Peter crouches in the shadows of a copse of trees, tracking the hunters’ careless movements - guns in their holsters, even holding coffee - as they position themselves at various points along the back of the warehouse.

He only needs to wait for another minute before the crack of a shot echoes across the clearing. Another two are fired in rapid succession before the hunters - shock-frozen before alarm begins to bleed across their features - finally lurch into a sprint around the warehouse, heading to the front where the shots came from even as they scramble for their weapons. A fourth shot - deliberate miss, Peter doesn’t doubt - leaves one alive long enough to scream, and shouts of confusion and anger soon burst forth in response, followed by returning gunfire.

As soon as the back clears, Peter lopes out of the trees and makes for the nearest door.

Not even locked. They really weren’t expecting company.

He slips inside and eases the door shut before cocking his head and focusing on everything within his hearing distance. He can’t pick up any heartbeats - he already knew that after realizing he couldn’t hear any of the hunters outside - but fancy little talismans don’t hide _breathing_. And if he concentrates, he can hear the inhale and exhale of everything living body inside the warehouse.

He counts three in total after two of them rush out the front to help their friends. Peter is confident Stiles will keep them busy. It’s up to Peter to complete the rest of this rescue mission.

He tracks two hunters to a doorway leading to the front doors, guns in hand but only half-dressed like they were asleep when Stiles started shooting. They hover apprehensively next to each other, staring in the at the doors as if that will somehow grant them x-ray vision, and so they don’t see Peter at all as he melts out of the shadows behind them, cast by the dim lighting of the warehouse. He breaks the neck of one and shoves his claws into the throat of the other before the woman has time to do anything more than open her mouth, eyes still wide with shock as Peter carefully lowers both her and her partner to the cement floor.

Two down, one to go.

He tracks the last hunter through a room on the far left. Beyond that, a man stands in front of a short flight of stairs leading down, and unlike the other two, he’s fully dressed and fully armed, and as Peter watches for an opening, the man reaches up to touch his earpiece, and even Peter can hear the static nothing that answers him when he demands a reply.

Ah, whoops. Well then.

Peter leaps out of the dark, but as if sensing him somehow, the man whirls, gun coming up just as Peter slams into him fangs bared even as he shoves the gun to one side a second before the hunter pulls the trigger.

They crash to the floor, Peter snarling when a knife grazes his hip. The hunter doesn’t get another shot at him though as Peter breaks his arm with one hand and digs the claws of his other hand into the hunter’s torso and rips his stomach open.

The hunter’s cursing abruptly dwindles to a wet gurgle, and his limbs jerk. Peter doesn’t waste any time - he brings his other hand up and rips his throat out too.

He rolls to his feet as soon as he feels the body go limp. He hisses as he checks the wound at his hip - it’s not deep but he has to take a minute to dig into the hunter’s pockets for a lighter and some wolfsbane.

His werewolf healing kicks in once the flash of fire’s burned the poison out of him. He rolls his shoulders irritably, unceremoniously kicks the hunter out of his way, and then limps for the stairs.

There are three locks on the metal door at the bottom of the steps. It only takes Peter two tries to force past all three, and his nose wrinkles as soon as the door swings open.

The stink of unwashed body and urine is almost overpowered by the waves of pain and misery and a devouring sort of grief that nearly makes Peter take a step back. Instead, he takes in the small interior of the room, and his lips peel back into a snarl.

There’s a bottle of water and mouldy uneaten bread by the door, a bucket on the right, and a ratty-looking cot in the corner. On top of it is a boy in torn-up dirty clothes, and what little skin Peter can see of that curled-up figure isn’t much better.

“Peter?”

“Here,” He calls back, and a moment later, near-silent footsteps come down the stairs, only to stop short just him, his flashlight brightening the interior in a way the warehouse lights couldn’t.

“Jesus fucking-” Stiles bites out, features twisting. He makes a disgusted sound before shouldering forward and scrubbing a foot across the mountain ash line guarding the doorway. He’s the first to step into the dingy little room.

“Jackson.”

The body doesn’t so much as twitch. The only reason Peter knows he’s alive at all is because of his heartbeat, sluggish and faint. Stiles approaches, pausing as he rests a hand on Jackson’s shoulder, but when he meets no resistance, he turns him towards them, and both he and Peter immediately spot the chain leash running from a collar around his neck to a metal ring set in the cement wall next to the cot.

His eyes are closed. From a glance, he doesn’t look like he’s sustained particularly heavy injuries but the mere fact that the cuts and bruises that he does have hasn’t healed yet is damning.

“Right,” Stiles sighs, and then gives Jackson a gentle shake. “Jackson? Can you hear me? Jackson.”

For a moment, it seems as if the boy would stay unconscious, but after another shake, Jackson stirs and his eyelids flicker open to reveal feverish-looking eyes.

Stiles automatically leans back so that he isn’t hovering, and it takes a long few seconds for Jackson’s gaze to focus on him. At first, it doesn’t even seem like he recognizes Stiles. There’s no fear there, just a dead sort of resignation that makes Peter think of corpses.

And then-

He jerks up, getting about halfway upright before a groan spills out of him, followed by a hacking cough makes his body seize like he’s being electrocuted. But one of his hands suddenly shoots out and clamps around Stiles’ arm like one would grab a lifeline, and when his coughing fit finally ebbs, the look in his eyes when he lifts his head is as much hope as it is desperation.

“S- Stiles?” He says hoarsely. “That’s- I’m not hallucinating, am I? Are you- You’re really-”

“Yeah,” Stiles grimaces, but he doesn’t shake off Jackson’s grip. “I’m here. You’re not hallucinating, or dreaming. We’re getting you outta this hellhole.”

Jackson makes a choking noise in response, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Knew Danny would- Fuck I can’t believe-”

He mumbles a few more half-sentences that sound increasingly delirious before Stiles interjects firmly, “You knew Danny would…?”

The question seems to focus Jackson back to the here and now, and his scoff - however weak - makes him look a little more alive. “Like he could go to anyone else. He’s not stupid. These fuckheads thought he’d go to _McCall_ for help, but that moron couldn’t help someone out of a paper bag.”

 _You could_ is implied, and Peter glances briefly from one to the other. He’s certain nobody in Beacon Hills aside from himself and the Sheriff knows what Stiles does for a living, but… he does wonder now, how long Jackson and Danny and perhaps even Lydia have known Stiles despite their previously rather antagonistic interactions, for two of the three to turn to Stiles - young and human and comparably _normal_ as far as they know - over every other supernaturally-enhanced creature in town, when push came to shove.

On Stiles’ part, the assassin simply heaves another sigh. “Alright, well, I’m here, and the hunters are dead, so let’s get the hell outta here. Peter, can you find a key for the collar?”

Jackson flinches as if finally realizing there’s someone else in the doorway, but Peter doesn’t linger as he turns and jogs back up the stairs to search the hunter. When he returns with a set of keys, Jackson’s managed to sit up, although his expression is crumpled with grief again.

“I felt them-” He’s mumbling, and he presses a hand to his chest. Neither Stiles nor Peter says anything in return; there isn’t really anything _to_ say in this situation. Peter knows that better than most.

He concentrates on inserting the smallest key in the keyhole at the back of the collar, and with a click, the metal band falls off and thumps onto the cot. Jackson flinches again before touching the raw skin of his throat.

Wolfsbane. Of course. Luckily, relatively speaking, it’s only rubbed his skin raw and kept it from healing, so there’s no need to burn more wolfsbane into it.

Stiles purses his lips before easing one of Jackson’s arms over his shoulder and hoisting him to his feet. “We’re getting out of here. You can call Danny once we’re back at the hotel.”

They leave. Peter leads the way, and they take one of the hunters’ cars to get them back to civilization.

He meets Stiles’ eyes in the rear-view mirror as the assassin gets Jackson situated as comfortably as possible in the back. Jackson doesn’t seem to care, slumping against the window, eyes falling shut again. They still don’t say anything, but Peter’s claws itch for more hunters to kill, and he knows Stiles feels the exact same way.

Most of another pack dead. An omega werewolf locked up for two and a half weeks and now nursing eight broken pack bonds.

There’s nothing in the world that will ever make up for either of those new realities. Peter can personally attest to that too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Please leave a review if you have time.**


End file.
